Illume gives you a comprehensive set of survey preferences which can be used to customize various visual and functional aspects of your surveys. Read this guide to learn more about these available preferences.
All surveys include a survey-wide default setting to indicate whether responses are required or optional. This default setting applies to each question in the survey, unless you specify otherwise.
To set the survey-wide response requirement:
While this setting provides a default, individual questions can be programmed to override the default. Follow the link to the article “Setting a Question’s Response Guides” below for instructions on how to override this setting for an individual question or for a group of questions.
There are two types of questions that may require special consideration for their responses.
For Select One-type questions in which the response options are displayed as a poplist, the default unanswered response is “–Select One–“. This provides a “blank” answer for the survey taker to start with; otherwise, the first response would automatically show first and become a default answer. To change the response from –Select One– just type the new text in the field.
For a Select One-type question with radio group responses, once a selection has been made there is no way to “deselect” the radio button so that no responses are selected. Including a response option such as “Select to leave question unanswered” will create an response that allows the Participants to select and leave the question unanswered.
NOTE: Both the Poplist Item and Radio Group Item are global settings and will be applied to all questions of that type.
Survey Preferences stores the default loop summary indicators if none are specified in the Loop object. These preferences can be overwritten in the Loop object but the default is to use the values specified in Survey Preferences.
The Loop Indicators can be graphics or text to Indicate the status of the Variables named in the Loop Summary Table.
The page footer appears at the bottom of every page in your survey below the navigation buttons, except the Login Page and the End Page
Illume surveys include a resume/restore feature that allows participants to resume a partially completed survey. When a participant logs in and Illume finds a partially completed survey for that participant, Illume presents the resume/restore page, which asks the participant whether they would like to resume the existing survey where they left off.
Note: An optional “Start Over” button can be added to this page. Clicking this button deletes all entered data for that survey session and resumes the participant at the start of the survey. This button can be added under the Preferences/Buttons page within the Survey menu.
Customize the message on the resume/restore page by following these steps:
There may be some scenarios in which you want respondents to bypass the survey resume/restore page, and always immediately resume a survey session instead of stopping first on this page. There are two ways to bypass the survey resume/restore page:
A suspended survey is one that was at one time published, but is not currently available to participants. A survey achieves a Suspended state when a user with the Administrator role sets the Running survey to a status of Suspend. The “Survey Suspended” page text is what participants see if they navigate to the URL of a suspended survey.
To customize the message on this page:
The Launch page appears for participants when the URL to a survey is clicked upon, in the event that the participant does not have JavaScript enabled in their browser, which is needed for automatically launching pages. This page provides a button to the participant which can be clicked to Launch the survey.
To customize the message on this page:
The save page appears when a participant clicks the Save button. This button does not appear in Illume surveys by default, but rather can be added via the Survey/Preferences/Button Text editor. By default all data are saved and sent to the server every time the participant clicks the Next button, once a page has been completed. The Save button essentially acts as the Next button in situations wherein an entire page has not yet been completed, in that it sends all completed responses to the server allowing the participant to resume on the exact item on which he left off. See “Setting up Save and Restore” for details.
To customize the message on this page:
The Buttons tab within Preferences provides the ability to control:
To modify the aspects above for the survey buttons:
Illume surveys include the following buttons:
To set the text for any button, click on the name of the button in the Buttons list, then type the text in the Button Text field. Click OK
To replace a button with an image:
After setting a button image, the text in the Button Text field becomes that alternate text of the button. Alternate text appears when the mouse hovers over the button or when the browser is unable to load or display the image.
Each button can appear in more than one place on the survey pages. To place a button, select the button from the Buttons list, then check one or more of the Placement options.
In some cases, there may be more than one button that appear in the same location on the page. For instance, there may be the Previous, Save, and Next buttons in the bottom center of the page.
To set the order in which these buttons display,
Other aspects of the Button Style can be edited on the Style page under the Survey menu. Users may edit the color, size, padding, border, and other aspects of the buttons. Under the appropriate style tree based on the Rendering style (Survey, Mobile, and Table), editing the style of the buttons can be accomplished via the Navigation/Buttons portion of the tree.
Users may set a Transition from page to page, and define the number of milliseconds of elapsed time for the transition. The transition occurs when the participant clicks the Next button to move to the next page of a survey, and controls how the next page loads. This results in a smooth, PowerPoint-like transition as the Next button is hit and the subsequent screen loads on the page.
To modify the page transition:
Survey parameters are custom variables consisting of a name and a value. Generally, they are used to display data that may appear in several places throughout the survey and/or data that may have to change frequently.
For example, in an employee satisfaction survey that is administered every quarter a parameter named “quater” could be piped into the survey. Then, the value of this parameter could be changed from “Spring” to “Summer” to “Fall” to “Winter”, as necessary.
In question prompts, text and HTML throughout the survey, place the marker {ParamValue:quarter} wherever the quarter appears. Illume will automatically replace {ParamValue:quarter} with the value of the “quarter” parameter when it displays pages to survey participants.
Similarly, if the questions ask participants about a specific product, a parameter could be created for the product name. Then, if the same questions are asked about another product in the future, the questions can be retrieved from the repository, dropped into a new survey, and the product name parameter in the survey could be changed to the name of the new product. Illume will then automatically insert the new product name into all the question prompts.
To set survey parameters, follow these steps:
To delete a parameter, click in the gray column to the left of the parameter name. This highlights the parameter name and value. Press the delete key on your keyboard.
To display a survey parameter in a question prompt or in the survey’s HTML, simply type {ParamValue:NAME_OF_PARAMETER}, substituting the actual parameter name for NAME_OF_PARAMETER. Illume will display the proper parameter value when the survey appears in the previewer, or in a participant’s browser. For more information about adding custom HTML to your survey, see “Using the HTML Editor.”
All Illume surveys include a set of default error messages. These are messages that participants will see when they fail to provide a valid response to a survey question.
NOTE: A custom error message can be created for any question in the survey. See “Setting a Question’s Response Guides”
A default error message appears only for questions that does not have a custom error message.
To customize your survey’s default error messages, follow these steps:
Illume surveys include the following default error message types:
Default error messages include special parameters to make them meaningful for participants. Each of these parameters is replaced by a relevant value while the survey is running.
For example,this default error message:
The value, {Response}, specified in question #{QNum} is greater than the maximum allowed value of {MaxValue}.
When a participant provides an invalid response, Illume replaces these three parameters with 1) the participant’s response, 2) the number of question to which the participant was responding, and 3) the maximum allowed value for the particular question.
As a result, the actual error message that a participant sees will look like this:
“The value, 150, specified in question #12 is greater than the maximum allowed value of 100.”
Default error messages can use the following parameters:
The Save Email Message is sent to a Participant that has clicked the Save Button within a survey. The Save button is optional and is included by the Survey Designer.
There is a default email message that provides the link to the survey that the Participant is currently taking. This link will work for both Authenticated and Unauthenticated surveys.
To edit the save email message, follow these steps:
Illume’s Survey Styles Editor enables the Survey Designer to define styles that will be applied throughout the survey. Style can be set broadly, at the survey level, or more narrowly to items such as buttons or question prompts.
The appearance of the Style editor will vary depending on the rendering style of the survey (i.e. Classic vs Responsive). For surveys in Classic rendering style, there will be only one tree within the Style editor: “Survey”. For surveys in the Responsive rendering style, there will be 3 trees: Survey, Tablet, and Mobile.
After clicking OK, use the survey previewer to see how the survey looks with the new styles.
Defining styles for Responsive surveys follows the same steps as above for Classic rendering style surveys, however rather than 1 Survey tree, the Style editor presents 3 trees: Survey, Tablet, and Mobile
For Responsive surveys, style must be applied to all 3 trees to ensure appropriate rendering across devices.
Illume uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define the fonts, colors, borders, and other stylistic elements of your survey. The styles defined will apply to the selected object and to all of the items contained within the selected object, except where it explicitly defines those properties differently.
To understand what this means, look at the left pane of the Survey Styles Editor. It shows a hierarchy of survey objects. At the top of the hierarchy is the object called Survey. Choose the Survey object in the left pane and then define properties like font, color, etc., those properties will be applied to all objects within the survey, except where it explicitly defines them differently.
Similarly, if properties for Question are defined, those properties will apply to Questions and to all of the sub-items below it in the hierarchy: Question Numbers, Question Prompts, Scale Labels and Values, Question Error Messages, etc. To override these settings in any of the Question sub-items, select the sub item and define the properties you want.
Example: The user wants the survey to use Verdana font throughout, and to display black text everywhere except in the question prompts. The question prompts should use bold blue text in the same Verdana font. To do this, the user would follow these steps:
When adding a question prompt, a response option, or some custom HTML to a survey, Illume provides an HTML editor to format the text as it is being composed. What happens if the Survey Style says the font color should be blue and the survey designer used the HTML editor to make some green text? The text will be green. Any formatting applied in the HTML editor overrides the formatting from the Survey Styles Editor.
Styles can be set for the following objects. Note that not all styles apply to all objects. For example, there are no border properties for Radio Buttons and Checkboxes because these items do not have borders.
Object | Definition |
Survey | Properties applied to the Survey object will apply to all parts of the survey where those properties are not otherwise defined. |
Header | The header appears at the top of each page of the survey. Define the header content in the Page Text tab of the Survey Preferences Editor. |
Progress Bar | The progress bar (if enabled) appears on all pages of the survey to indicate how far a participant has progressed. |
Collection | Properties applied to a collection are applied to all elements within all collections. |
Text/HTML | Properties applied to Text/HTML objects will affect all Text/HTML objects, but note that any formatting applied within the HTML editor will override the style properties. |
Collection Error Messages |
These are error messages that are not associated with a particular question. Examples include messages for invalid logins and attempts to submit a survey more than once. |
Question | Properties applied to questions will affect all parts of all questions (prompts, response options, question numbers, etc.) except where overridden. |
Question Number | The Question Number appears to the left of each question prompt in the survey. (Question numbers will not appear of question numbering is disabled in the Survey Preferences.) |
Question Prompt | The Question Prompt is the text to which participants respond. |
Scale Labels and Values |
Scale Labels are the response options from which a participant chooses when answering a question. Scale Values are the values associated with each label. Generally, only Labels are displayed to the participant. |
Alternating Radio Scale Labels |
This sets the background color of even numbered scale items in radio type questions. |
Alternating Checkbox Scale Labels |
This sets the background color of even numbered scale items in check all that apply questions. |
Question Error Messages |
Question Error Messages are the messages participants see when they have failed to supply a valid response to a question.Note that most error messages for most users will appear as JavaScript alerts (the little pop-up dialog with the OK button). It is not possible to set styles for JavaScript alerts. This is a limitation of browser technology, not a limitation of the Illume product. Any errors that are not caught by the JavaScript validation will be caught by |
Input Controls | Input controls include items like text boxes and popup menus. Font properties apply to the text within the controls. |
Radio/Checkbox Controls |
The only property available for Radio and Checkbox controls is ControlSize. Set this to a numeric value to set the height and width of the controls.A value of “20” will set the height and width to 20 pixels. A value of “20pt” will set the height and width to 20 points. |
Question Tables | Question Tables are groups of questions that share a common set of responses. The prompts for each question appear in the first column of the table, and the response options appear in the following columns. Any attributes set for Question Tables will apply to Row Headings, Column Headings, Alternating Row and Alternating Column, unless the survey designer specifically overrides the settings in any of those objects. |
Sub-Question Number |
Properties defined here apply to the question number that precedes the prompt of each item in a Question Table. |
Prompts | Properties defined here will apply to each individual prompt within a Question Table. |
Column Headings | Column Headings in Question Tables appear at the top of each of the columns that contains a response option. The text of the response options is printed in the column headers. |
Alternating Row | Alternating Row properties will be applied to the even numbered rows in a Question Table. |
Alternating Column | Alternating Column properties will be applied to the even numbered columns in a Question Table. The properties will not apply to the question prompts. |
Alternating Question |
The background against which survey questions appear alternates by default between white and yellow. |
Button Box | The Button Box is the area around the buttons at the top and/or bottom of the page. It extends almost to the full width of the page, and is normally not visible. It can be made visible by setting a background color and border. |
Buttons | The properties set here will apply to all of the buttons in the survey. |
Footer | The footer appears at the bottom of each page of the survey.Footer content is defined in the Page Text tab of the Survey Preferences Editor. |
Most style properties present a list of valid values from which to choose. Those properties that do not display a list of valid values expect numeric values. Some properties, such as font size, allow survey designers to ignore all of the items on the list and type in a number of their choosing.
Numeric values use the following units:
Unit | Abbreviation | Description |
Pixels | px | One pixel represents 1/72 of an inch (1/29 cm.) on most computer monitors, though it may represent 1/90 of an inch (1/36 cm.) on some monitors. |
Points | pt | One point represents 1/72 of an inch (1/29 cm.). |
Picas | pc | One pica is 12 points (1/6 in. or about 2/5 cm.) |
Inches | in | One inch is 72 points, or approximately 2.5 cm. |
Centimeters | cm | One centimeter is approximately 29 points, or 0.4 inches. |
Millimeters | mm | One millimeter is approximately 3 points or 0.04 inches. |
Em | em | Em-units are calculated relative to each participant’s system-wide default font-sizes. |
Ex | ex | An ex unit is the height of the letter x calculated from the participant’s system-wide default font size. This height will differ for each font. |
Percent | % | Percent values represent widths relative to the nearest block-level container. E.g. setting the width of a button to 50%, the button will be half as wide as the table cell that contains it. |
Of these units, pixels, em-units and percents are generally best for the Web because computers can scale these units as necessary for the participant’s monitor.
If the survey designer sets the value of a property to a simple number, like 12, the Survey Styles Editor will assume points as the unit, and will set the value to 12.00pt. To set the value to 12 points, specify 12pt. To set the value to 12 percent, specify 12%.
While font sizes can be set to a numeric value such as 12pt or 16px, Illume uses em values by default to comply with Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act. If the survey needs to comply with Section 508, em values should be used to define font sizes because em values set font sizes relative to each participant’s system default font sizes. Participants who have difficulty reading text on a computer monitor will generally use a large font size as the default. Em values respect these settings. For example, an em value of 1.00 displays text at exactly the system default point size. An em value of 1.50 displays fonts at 1.5 times the system default font size.
The Responsive Design feature gives users the ability to create surveys that will render appropriately whether the participant uses a desktop computer, tablet, or mobile device. This feature detects the size of the browser window of the participant, and based on that size automatically adjusts the display and controls within the survey to be most functional for that browser size. If the browser detected by Illume is fewer than 992 pixels in size, Illume determines that device to be a tablet. If the display is fewer than 768 pixels in size, Illume determines that device to be mobile (these pixel determinations are based on industry standards).
Once Illume determines the pixel size, it automatically adjusts the Cascading Style Sheet that controls the display of the web page that is the survey. Users have the ability to view and edit the style settings associated to each rendering type.
To implement responsive design in an Illume Survey:
To view and edit the rendering styles associated to a responsive survey:
There are two main considerations when determining whether a survey built in a prior version should be altered to allow for Responsive design:
The End Page is the page participants see after they click the Submit button in the survey (or the submit button is clicked by a “jump to the end and automatically submit”. Illume enables the survey creator to define custom content for the end page. Multiple end pages can be created, with each block of end page content including show-if conditions so that they appear only to participants who meet specific criteria.
For example, the survey may screen participants to see if they are eligible for a more detailed follow-up study. Those who qualify for the follow-up study will see on the end page an invitation to participate in the follow-up. Others will see only a message thanking them for their participation. To determine which content a participant sees is controlled by simple show-if logic on each end page content block. For example, the “invitation” may appear to all participants who answered yes to a certain question. Anyone who did not answer yes will see the thank you message.
To create a End Page content, follow these steps:
Yes. If a participant meets the show-if conditions for more than one block of end page content (i.e. conditions are not mutually exclusive), the content from each end page will appear in the same order that the content appears in the End Page Content Editor. All of the content appears on a single HTML page.
For example, assume the survey has one question that asks “Which end page would you like to see?” The options are “blue,” “red,” and “green.” The survey has the following four end pages:
When the End Page Content blocks are in this order…
participants will see the content from either the red or green or blue end page, followed by the content from the default end page.
NOTE: There is no show-if condition on the default end page content, so everyone sees it.
When the End Page Content blocks are in this order…
participants will see the default end page content first (i.e. at the top of the page), followed by either the red or green or blue end page content.
Users can easily manipulate the look and feel of the Survey Header via the Survey Header editor. The Survey Header appears on every page of the body of the survey. It does NOT appear on the Login page nor on the End PageUsers may input the title text and control the placement, and optionally choose a logo and progress bar.
To edit the Survey Header:
Users can more easily manipulate the look and feel of the Survey Header via the Survey Header Wizard. Users may input the title text and control the placement, and optionally choose a logo and progress bar. The Wizard will ensure all components are placed appropriately in the header and in reference to each other. Users may also create the header manually, as described above.
To utilize the Header Wizard:
Survey redirects allow participants to be redirected to another web site or URL after they have submitted a survey. One potential use for survey redirects is to chain one survey to another, i.e. to direct a participant from one survey to another survey. You may use redirects in combination with End Page Content, i.e. you can have certain participants be redirected on submit under certain conditions, and show other participants End Page Content under other conditions, as long as the full set of conditions are mutually exclusive.
If redirect needs to occur in the middle of a survey, a Jump object can be added that specifies “Jump to the end and automatically submit” and the redirect will occur after the submit.
Steps to create a survey redirect:
After a participant submits a survey each redirect is visited in top to bottom order in which they are specified in the Survey Designer. The participant is redirected to the first redirect that matches the criteria. Once a participant matches the criteria of one redirect, all redirect and end page processing stops. This means that if a redirect is being performed, no end page Text/HTML object content will be displayed upon submission of the survey. For SDK users this means that no runtime content objects in the end page will be processed.
It is important to note that order is very important when specifying redirects. To change the order of redirects, click on a redirect in the Survey Redirects dialog and drag it up or down.
A Redirect can be copied and pasted within the same survey or to another.
This article describes how to set up Save and Restore on unauthenticated surveys. Save and Restore enables survey participants to save a survey in progress and resume work on it later.
Authenticated surveys are surveys that are associated with one or more participant lists. Only participants on the lists can take the surveys, and Illume keeps track of which survey belongs to which participant.
Authenticated surveys always have the restore feature enabled, so there is no need to set it up. When a participant comes to the authenticated survey, Illume always checks first to see if the participant has a survey in progress. If so, Illume gives the participant the option to restore the survey in progress, or to start over.
The Restore and Start Over buttons can be customized. See Customizing Survey Buttons for details.
It can be of benefit to add the Save button even for authenticated surveys for two reasons: its presence lets participants know that they can save the survey and resume it later, and it enables them to save responses on a page they’ve only partially completed. Without the save button, Illume saves only the participant’s last completed page. (The last page on which they clicked the Next button.)
Unauthenticated surveys are open – they do not have an associated participant list. These surveys grant access to everyone, and everyone can take the survey a potentially unlimited number of times.
To set up Save and Restore for an unauthenticated survey, follow these steps:
NOTE: The sample below contains two special tags. {ResumeUrl:Click Here To Resume} will be replaced in the actual email with a clickable link that says “Click Here To Resume.” Clicking the link takes the participant back to his or her survey in progress. Whatever text is typed after the colon in this tag becomes the text of the clickable link.
{ResumeRawUrl} will be replaced in the actual email with the full URL the participant needs to resume his or her survey. This full URL will appear as a clickable link in most email clients (such as Microsoft Outlook). The participant may click the link, or cut and paste the URL into a browser to resume their survey.
NOTE: The Save Email that Illume sends to the participant is an HTML formatted email. Illume does not send a plain text version.
When a participant clicks the Save button, they will see a page like the one below.
If the participant chooses to have the URL emailed, Illume will attempt to send the email immediately.
Illume includes some special customizable messages for the Save Email. Click on the Error Messages tab of the Survey Preferences editor to set the text of these messages.
From the Error message for list,the text can be set for any of the following items pertaining to the Save page.