Navigational issues in the design of online self-administered questionnaires

Answering questions on surveys involves the access of internal knowledge structures, the retrieval of records from external databases and the navigation of items on the interface. In this study a number of alternative designs for online questionnaire presentation were investigated. A long heterogeneous survey was partitioned in four ways: whole form, semantic sections, screen pages and single items. Questionnaires were presented with or without an index, resulting in eight versions. Neither initial completion times nor subjective assessments differed among the eight versions due to the highly linear navigation of the surveys. Respondents were asked to revisit 16 questions based on the topic of the question or on the question number and to change their answers. Revision times reflected ease of finding items in the structure of the survey and the use of an index to the sections of the questionnaire.