Labels used for searching surveys are called Categories and Values. The system works like a library’s subject catalog: the catalog includes a set of custom categories, and each item in the collection is marked as belonging to one or more of those categories.
Categories are similar to high level subjects in the library catalog, like history or biography. Values are similar to library sub categories, such as ‘History / US’, ‘History / Military’, ‘Biography / 20th Century,’ etc. Illume‘s survey search feature relies on the category/value system to organize and find surveys.
Here is a more comprehensive example:
- Company X publishes internal surveys regarding Human Resources issues, and external surveys regarding customer satisfaction issues.
- They create two categories under which to organize their surveys: “HR” and “Products.”
- They add three values to the HR category: Benefits, Compensation, Satisfaction.
- They add three values to the Products category to represent their three products: “Widget,” “Gadget,” and “Gidgit.”
- Each of the company’s existing surveys is associated with one or more values in the HR category or the Products category.
The result? When it’s time to create a new survey on Gadgets, a survey designer can search for existing surveys in the Product category that pertain to Gadgets. From the surveys that the search turns up, the designer can drag and drop existing questions for reuse in the new survey. This can greatly improve the efficiency of survey design for that user.