This guide will cover how to use Qualtrics for beginners and will enable you to create an effective and accessible survey from scratch.

To know more about Qualtrics, please read the article "Starting a survey with Qualtrics".

Setting up your first Survey

1. To begin, sign-in with your university credentials at https://southampton.qualtrics.com/

2. Select Create a new project from the bottom left of the screen:

3. For your first survey, go to the section From Scratch and select the button Survey:

4. A summary of the project type selected will appear on the right, choose Get started to continue. 

5. For now, enter the name of your survey (you can rename it later), then

1. Choose Create a blank survey project
2. When you are ready, choose Create Project: 

6. When you first open Qualtrics you will be in the Survey editor:

Qualtrics has many options and menus making it easy to get lost for new users.

You can always return to the first screen by selecting:

1. The Survey tab, and then
2. The Builder menu:

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Adding different question types in Qualtrics

When you start a new survey, there will be a question already in place.

To change the question type, select it from the Question type drop-down menu:

To add a question, select the +Add new question button in the bottom right:

You will be asked to choose a question type for the new question but this can be changed later.

 

Accessibility and different Question Types

Qualtrics offers a wide range of different question types and ways for your respondents to input data. Some of these question types however are more visual and so may not be accessible for those using screen readers or on touch screen devices.

All the question types include in this guide can be accessible however some do have sub-types or layouts which are not accessible. If you intend to distribute your survey widely then consider referring to Qualtrics own guide on Survey Accessibility.

 

Timing of Questions

In Qualtrics you can set up a timer on questions however it is possible for respondents to circumvent timers by clearing their web cache. As such Qualtrics may be unsuitable for unsupervised testing and examinations.

As collecting data under controlled conditions is a nuanced topic it is advisable you fully research the offerings to find the platform best for you using the resources below

Please follow this link for documentation on Qualtrics Timing questions.

You may also find the documentation on timing questions and Microsoft Forms.

 

Text Entry response question

Text entry questions the simplest kind of question in Qualtrics. Each one has a 20,000 character limit.

From Edit Question, you can: 

• Use single line, multiple line, or essay length response box
• Set a minimum, maximum, or specific response length
• Require responses to fit a Content type (such as email address, phone number, date format etc)

Please follow this link for further information about Text entry questions.

 

Form Field response question

For multiple text entry fields in the same question use the Form field question.

From Edit Question, you can:

• Choose the number of fields up to 100, each with a 20,000-character limit.
• Use suggested form fields - for example the address (address lines, city, region, post code, etc).

Please follow this link for further information about Form Field questions.

 

Multiple Choice Questions

For a simple, single line multiple choice question use this question type.

From the left-menu Edit Question, you can:

• Allow multiple answers
• Require a maximum or minimum number of answers
• Change the questions appearance to be a list, drop down menu or selection box

 
Please follow this link for further information about Multiple Choice Questions.

 

Matrix Table questions

To achieve either a grid of text entry or multiple-choice questions use a Matrix Table:

Only text entry style grids are guaranteed as accessible (rank order, constant sum, text entry)

You will want to test multiple choice style grids (Likert, Bipolar and Max Diff) if you are aiming to have a fully accessible survey to ensure the style meets your needs or use as many multiple-choice questions as you need instead.

From Edit Question, you can:

• Choose your preferred matrix type.
• Set the number of statements you want to capture.
• Choose the number of scale points and apply default headings up to 7
• Design your gauge from many available presets and use custom labels

Please follow this link for further information about Matrix table questions.

 

Rank order Question

Simple Rank order questions allow users to arrange inputs according to preference.

From Edit Question, you can:

• Choose the number of items to rank
• Choose the format of the question, including radio buttons, drag and drop among others

Please follow this link for further information about Rank Order questions.

 

Text or image section 

Qualtrics allows you to include only text or images without questions using the Text / Graphic option.

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Advanced questions

Historically the University used a platform called iSurvey for conducting surveys. On this platform was included some question types that do not appear normally in Qualtrics.

For those familiar with our old platform, or who are interested in the below functionality please be aware that these question types require more advanced setting up and may not be accessible to screen readers or on mobile devices.

 

Date questions

If you would like to add a date question that can be answered with a pop-up calendar, please follow this date question process.

 

Country List

Question To add a country selection question that allows users to answer from a list of countries, please follow this validated input question process.

 

Ethnicity selection question

To add an ethnicity selection question in the style used by the Office for National Statistics please follow this method

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Survey flow control: adding skips or alternate question paths to your survey

Question Blocks 

Question blocks will appear in sequence in the editor, and it is possible to expand and collapse the blocks so you can see all your questions at once.

The button to Add Block will appear at the bottom of your survey:

 
You can rearrange your blocks by dragging and dropping them into the desired order.

 

Display logic

Display Logic can be added from the Edit Question menu:

Display logic can display specific questions depending on user input to return targeted response data:

When a question has display logic attached you will see this icon attached to it:

 

Skip Logic

Skip Logic can be added from the Edit Question:

Skip logic allows you to bypass question blocks or the survey entirely:

When a question has display logic attached you will see "Skip to" icon attached to it:

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Configuring your survey

Survey name

Survey name can be set by going to the Qualtrics home page.

Choose the project to set the name of and pick Rename project from the Project Options menu:

 

Make the survey available online

To make your survey available, select Publish in the top right of the editor:

Before publishing you will get a confirmation screen:

 

Qualtrics ExpertReview will also automatically rate the survey, like a spellchecker for surveys.

You may find its recommendations useful but can ignore them if they do not suit your needs.

 

Date Restrictions

A specific start and expiration date for your survey can be set at:

1. Survey
2. Survey (Tab)
3. Survey Options (Sidebar)
4. Responses (Sidebar)
5. Survey Availability

 

Password protecting surveys and survey security

Password protecting can be done in different ways depending on how you distribute your survey, though each way may have its own limitations.

Covering that here is not possible and so you should review Qualtrics article on survey security options to see if it is suitable for your needs.

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Survey options

Completion emails

To receive emails on survey completion, set up an email trigger in Survey Options under Post-Survey.

By default this will email a designated account on completion of the survey.

You may instead request other conditions be observes such as specific quotas or questions answered:

 

Alert participants to incomplete survey

There are a number of options to allow you to manage and classify incomplete responses. You may opt to remove them entirely or set a custom time frame before they are deemed incomplete.

Using the email triggers mentioned above you may send an alert warning of only partial completion.

For more information please find this page on Incomplete Survey Responses.

 

Allow participants to print the survey and responses for offline purposes

It is not easily possible to allow respondents to print the survey for offline completion.

You may export your survey to word and attach it separately for your respondents to print or print it yourself using the print survey button under:

1. Tools
2. Import Export
3. Print Survey

You can allow respondents to download their responses by editing the end of survey block at the bottom of your survey builder:

 

Disable 'Save survey' for participants

Depending on how you distribute your survey respondents may be unable to return to the survey later.

Distributing the survey anonymously may mean users cannot return. Also, as Qualtrics is web based, if a user deletes their browsing history, they may lose their progress and have to begin again.

As this is closely related to the complex topic of distribution methods, we advise you test your survey first to see if it behaves as desired.

 

Progress bar

A progress bar can be added from the "Look and feel" settings on the left:

 

Remove the "Previous page" button

The back button is disabled by default in Qualtrics. You can enable it by going to:

1. Survey
2. Survey (Tab)
3. Survey Options (Sidebar)
4. Responses (Sidebar)
5. Back Button

 
To prevent your survey corrupting, If you have a branching survey, you may not be able to use the Back button as the survey will not be linear.

 

Survey Look and feel

Qualtrics has a lot of Styling options so please visit the Styling and themes section.

 

Welcome statement / consent statement

To add a welcome statement you will want to use a Text/Graphic "question."

Despite being under question types this is not a question and allows you to simply add text or an image for use in other questions or to add context overall

To actively obtain prior consent to surveying Qualtrics has a guide here on Building a consent form.

 

Provide participants with a unique ID number

In Qualtrics it is not possible to guarantee a unique ID number. To achieve a similar effect and validate a respondents survey completion, you will need to provide them with a randomised ID.

It is possible for respondents to be assigned the same random ID number but this can be made incredibly unlikely by providing a 12 digit or longer participant ID length.

For more information and instructions please read the article "Assigning Randomized IDs to Respondents".

 

Email the participant a completion receipt

To send respondents an email receipt or a thank you on survey completion, please read the article "Post-Survey Options - section "Send a Thank You Email"".

 

Thank You/Debriefing statement or Jump to a URL

To display a thank you message link to an external site upon survey completion

1. Select the end of survey box at the bottom
2. Choose either custom message or redirect to URL from the drop down:
   
   

 

Adding additional editors

To know more about adding additional editors to your project, please read the article "Collaborating on Projects".

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Styling and themes

Themes

For backgrounds you can choose either a dynamic or custom theme from the Look and feel menu.

Dynamic Themes can be found in the Theme menu and include our branded theme and other presets.
  
Custom themes can use either a flat colour or background image from the Background menu.

You can edit the font type, size and colour.

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Managing your results

Previewing Results

The Data & Analysis tab will allow you to see survey results and monitor its progress:

The Data tab will provide the most accessible results for quick analysis.

You may choose what data you see using the Column chooser menu on the right:

The Data tab will allow you to see answers to questions to validate the data you are receiving.

You may also pull Survey Metadata including:

• Response Date
• Date the response was started and finished
• Duration or total time spent on the survey
• IP Address
• Language and location of respondent

On individualized surveys you may also pull Contact Fields including:

• Respondent names
• Respondent email address 
• How the respondent accessed the survey

 

Open in Excel

To open your results in Excel use Export Data under Export & Import:

It is advisable to download the results using the provided Excel preset.

In case your data set is very large it may be best to use a TSV preset which can be uploaded to Excel:

You can also download responses to file upload questions from User-submitted files.

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Workarounds: instructions to plug functionality gaps

Date questions

To add a date question, go to the Import from Library button in the Survey Editor

 
From here choose:

1. Qualtrics Library
   
   
2. Demographics
   
   

This will present you with a list of Blocks and Survey templates.

Find Calendar & Date Questions and select it. This will present the 3 available question variations:

 

Selecting these questions will only show the JavaScript that powers them. Instead choose Insert as copy:

This will import all 3 types to your survey for you to explore and see which one is the best fit.

To test drive each, preview your survey and see how each one works.

Be aware that if you test the questions in the editor then the code is not running to validate your input - ss such you could enter February 30th or September 31st.

This is not the case if you use preview (or when sent to respondents) as the code will run.

The questions will validate leap years and month lengths to ensure false dates cannot be input.

 

Country questions

To add a date question, go to the Import from Library button in the Survey Editor:

 
From here choose:

1. Qualtrics Library
   
   
   
   
2. Demographics
   
   

This will present you with a list of Blocks and Survey templates.

Find Country Block and select it. The question "In which country do you currently live" will appear:

 
To add it to your survey, tick the small box in the top right and choose Insert question:

This will import the question to your survey which by default contains all countries ready to use.

You can choose to edit multiple under edit question to get a list of return separated countries

If you wish to change the countries or even repurpose the list for UK counties, you can do so here.

 

Creating an Ethnicity Selection Question using the Office of National Statistics (ONS) standard

To begin, create a multiple choice question. Proceed to “Edit question”:

Create your group 1 "a) White" as follow:

1. Under “Answer Type”, ensure “Allow one answer” is selected
2. Under “Choices”, reduce the number of choices to 1 for now
3. Under “Format”, set the “format” to “List” and set the “Alignment” to “Vertical”
   
4. Under “Format”, using “Add choice group”, set up your first group
5. To set the group title as "a) White", select “Group”
6. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>a) White</strong></span>
   (please copy and paste everything between between the <> symbols)
   
7. Select “Click to write Choice 1”
8. Select the arrow to open the drop-down menu
   
9. Select the option "Assign to group" and then the option with the code entered for “a) White"
   
10. From the Edit question menu, increase the number of choices to 5
    
    

Set up your group 2 "b) Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups" as follow:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select "Group"
   
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>b) Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups
4. Select “Click to write Choice 5”
5. Select the arrow to open the drop-down menu
6. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code enter for “b) Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups”
7. Increase the number of choices to 9

 

Set up your group 3 "c) Asian or Asian British". Set the group name to everything below:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>c) Asian or Asian British</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 9”
5. Select the arrow to open the drop-down menu
6. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code enter for “c) Asian or Asian British”
7. Increase the number of choices to 14

 

Set up your group 4 "d) Mixed". Set the group name to everything below:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>d) Mixed</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 14”
5. Select the option "Assign to group" and then the option with the code enter for “d) Mixed”
6. Increase the number of choices to 17

 

Set up your group 5 "e) Other ethnic groups". Set the group name to everything below:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>e) Other ethnic groups</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 17”
5. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code enter for “e) Other ethnic groups”
6. Increase the number of choices to 19.

 

Renaming the options

You should have now 5 groups with enough spaces to add the necessary options.

Under group 1 (named "a) White") there should now be 4 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• Welsh/English/Scottish/Northern Irish/British
• Irish
• Gypsy or Irish Traveller
• Any other White background

Under group 2 (named "b) Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups") there should now be 4 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• White and Black Caribbean
• White and Black African
• White and Asian
• Any other Mixed/Multiple ethnic background

Under group 3 (named "c) Asian or Asian British") there should now be 5 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• Indian
• Pakistani
• Bangladeshi
• Chinese
• Any other Asian background

Under group 4 (named "d) Mixed") there should now be 3 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• African
• Caribbean
• Any other Black/African/Caribbean background

Under group 5 (named "e) Other ethnic groups") there should now be 3 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• Arab
• Any other ethnic group, please describe
• Do not state

If the standard changes, you can increase the number of choices by the required amount, right click on the blank options created and use “Assign to group” to move them to where they need to be. If a decrease is required, then you can right click the options to remove and delete that row.

 

How to increase or the the number of choices in a group

If the standard changes, you can increase the number of choices by the required amount:

1. Increase the number of choices from the "Edit question > Choices" menu on the left
2. A new blank option will appear at the end of the list
3. Right-click on the new option created and use “Assign to group” to move them to where they need to be.

If you need to move the new option within the same group, please:

1. Right-click on the new option created 
2. Scroll the drop-down menu
3. Select "Move up" or "Move down"
4. Close the menu by clicking outside of it 

If a decrease is required, then you can:

1. Right-click the options to remove 
2. Scroll the drop-down menu
3. Select "Remove choice"

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Getting IT help

If you need help, please contact ServiceLine or visit one of our Tech Hubs.

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