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Typography & Layout Top Tips!

Typography & Layout Top Tips!. FOLIO ASQ Course May 2006. Some Typography Tips. Always make sure that the text on your questionnaire is large enough and clear enough for people to read.

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Typography & Layout Top Tips!

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  1. Typography & LayoutTop Tips! FOLIO ASQ Course May 2006

  2. Some Typography Tips • Always make sure that the text on your questionnaire is large enough and clear enough for people to read. • A slight reduction in type size may reduce the length of your questionnaire - but make sure it will still be readable for your respondents.

  3. Font Style Recommendations • Times New Roman and Arial are the preferred font style for high levels of legibility and readability. Verdana is also a good choice. • Both the Basic Skills Agency (BSA) (http://www.basic-skills.co.uk/) and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) (http://www.rnib.org.uk/) express a slight preference for san serif fonts (such as Arial).

  4. Font Size Recommendations • The RNIB recommends a font size of 12 points for documents intended for general readers, and a minimum of 14 points if readers are likely to have a visual impairment.

  5. Line Spacing Recommendations • It is recommended to use at least double spacing between one question and the next, and between a question and the first related response category. Within a set of response categories, 1.5 line spacing is recommended.

  6. Some More Typography Tips • Use a combination of bold and/or underlining where appropriate to provide emphasis in the text of a question and to distinguish instructions from questions. • However, be aware that if you use underlining on an online questionnaire, people may confuse it with hypertext links.

  7. Some Layout Tips • The quality of your questionnaire represents your organisation - make sure it looks professional. • Try not to overfill the page - using lots of lines, borders and boxes can make the page appear too “dense”. • Don’t split questions over pages.

  8. The Order of Questions • The order of the questions on your questionnaire is important. Some general rules are: • Go from general to particular. • Go from easy to difficult. • Go from factual to abstract. • Start with closed format questions. • Start with questions relevant to the main subject. • Do not start with demographic questions.

  9. White Space • Don’t cramp questions together to make your questionnaire appear shorter - using “white space” makes your questionnaire appear easier to complete. • Use more blank space between questions than subcomponents of questions.

  10. Your Respondents • Put yourself in the respondents place and come up with ways to make the questionnaire as appealing to the eye and as easy to answer as possible. • Don’t forget that your respondents are seeing your questionnaire for the first time. They may be in a hurry so they need to “orientate themselves very quickly to the flow of a questionnaire”1, therefore it is a good idea to be consistent and avoid switching between landscape (e.g. Likert scales) and portrait (e.g. vertical list of choices) for the text layout. 1.Booth, A (2005) Mind your Ps and Qs (pitfalls of questionnaires). Health Information & Libraries Journal22 (3): 228-231.

  11. Some More Layout Tips • Number all questions sequentially. • Try to be consistent in aspects such as wording. • Use a consistent style of questions (i.e. not a mixture of ticking boxes, circling answers etc.) • If you are using tick boxes etc., don’t make the boxes too small!

  12. And Finally… • Proof read, proof read and proof read again! - Be absolutely sure that there are no errors on your questionnaire before you distribute it.

  13. References Booth, A (2005) Mind your Ps and Qs (pitfalls of questionnaires). Health Information & Libraries Journal22 (3): 228-231. Burgess, T.F. (2001) A general introduction to the design of questionnaires for survey research [online] [Accessed May 2006] Frary, R. (2002) A Brief Guide to Questionnaire Development [online] [Accessed May 2006] Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative (1999) Evaluation Cookbook: Questionnaires [online] [Accessed May 2006] Leung W.C. How to design a questionnaire. StudentBMJ 2001; 9: 187-9 [online] [Accessed May 2006] McColl E. et al. Design and use of questionnaires: a review of best practice applicable to surveys of health service staff and patients. Health Technology Assessment, 2001; 5 (31): 1-256 [online] [Accessed May 2006] Taylor, C.L. & Summerhill, W.R. (2006) Formatting a Mail Questionnaire [online] [Accessed May 2006] University of Illinois (2005) Introduction to Questionnaire Design [online] [Accessed May 2006] University of Leicester (2006) Design on online questionnaires 1: Appearance [online] [Accessed May 2006] WebSurveyor for Marketing (2006) Survey Design Considerations: Recommendations for Writing Effective Questionnaires [online] [Accessed May 2006]

  14. Further Reading • Smith, T.W. (1995) Little Things Matter: A Sampler of How Differences in Questionnaire Format Can Affect Survey Responses [online] [Accessed May 2006]

  15. The End

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