When extracting information from respondents in the most optimal way possible, it is important to ask the right questions. And yes, the type of question used to gather this data plays a significant role, both in the quality of the data you collect and the respondent’s experience and engagement while contributing to your research. That’s why we have extended the number of question types in Maplix Engage to 14 (!) with the introduction of budget questions and image selection questions.

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Budget question

Prioritizing certain statements, measures or categories: you could simply ask respondents to rank them in the order of their preference using the ranking question type in Maplix Engage. However, in some use cases, just ranking them in a specific order does not provide enough information to draw valuable conclusions. What if the respondent values two statements as equally good, important or valuable? How big is the difference between the highest ranked measure and the lowest ranked measure? Another layer of information is necessary. And we’ve got you covered, as the budget question type has been added to the survey editor in Maplix Engage.

What is a budget question? It’s simple. A respondent is allocated a certain budget. This budget can be expressed in euros, points, percent or whatever suffix you might need. It is then up to the respondent to divide that budget among different categories shown in the survey, using sliders. By enabling the respondent to attach a numerical value to each of the categories, you can not only see the order in which the respondent ranks these categories, but also by how much. Comes in handy, right?

In addition, the budget question improves the respondent engagement a great deal. Using this type of question creates a fun way to for the respondent to participate in a survey and feel involved in real-life scenarios that might occur in the decision-making process in their region. Win-win!

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Image selection

Having a respondent select one or more predefined answer options is one of the basics in survey design. This can be done in Maplix Engage by using radio buttons, checkboxes or dropdowns. Adding to that list, we have now added the image selection question type. Not all answer options can be put into words, you know. Instead of letting the respondent choose from of a list of textual or numerical answer options, the image selection question allows respondents to choose from a list of images to answer the question.

The image selection question type can be customized in various ways. First of all, you can allow the respondent to select just one or multiple images. Next, you are able to add a label to each image to be displayed below the images, which is later also used in Maplix Engage and Maplix Maps to identify the image option in rule editors, maps and reports. Additionally, the images in this question type can be displayed in three different sizes, from really small to really big. Just how you like it.

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At Maplix, we firmly believe in asking the right questions. This is key to getting the most value from your respondents and obtain a qualitative and usable dataset to work with. And let it be exactly our goal to help you do this. Providing the right tools, options, flexibility and user experience, we continue to guide you through your participation process from start to finish.

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