Survey Playbook
Every SurveyInSite template, what it’s for, and how to use it. Pick the one that matches what you want to learn — or combine several into one multi-section survey.
Which template should I use?
| If you want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| One fast decision or go / no-go vote | Quick Poll |
| Gauge attitudes or sentiment | Likert Agreement |
| Satisfaction or quality of things/services | Star / Rating Review |
| Open ideas and comments | Open Feedback / Ideas |
| Capture who is responding | Demographic / Registration |
| Put options in priority order | Ranked Choice |
| Prioritise spending under a fixed budget | Budget Allocation |
| Find what to fix first | Importance vs Performance |
| A yearly community / customer pulse | Annual Satisfaction |
| Find true priorities from a longer list | Priority Ranking (MaxDiff) |
| Compare two competing designs or options | Design Option Preference |
The templates
🗳️ Quick Poll
What it is: One question with a list of answer options; respondents pick exactly one.
When to use it: A single, fast decision or a pulse vote.
How to write it: A clear question plus 2–6 distinct options.
How to read the results: The percentage choosing each option.
📊 Likert Agreement
What it is: A set of statements, each rated on a 5-point scale from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree.
When to use it: Measuring attitudes or sentiment across several themes.
How to write it: Statements a person can agree or disagree with, e.g. “The new layout meets my needs.”
How to read the results: Average (1–5) and the spread for each statement.
⭐ Star / Rating Review
What it is: A list of items or services, each rated 1–5.
When to use it: Satisfaction or quality after an event, or for a set of services.
How to write it: Name each item or service on its own line.
How to read the results: The average score per item.
💬 Open Feedback / Ideas
What it is: Open-text prompts respondents answer in their own words.
When to use it: Collecting ideas, themes and comments.
How to write it: Open questions, e.g. “What would you most like improved?”
How to read the results: A list of all responses (not scored).
👤 Demographic / Registration
What it is: Profile questions — multiple choice or short text.
When to use it: Capturing who is responding, standalone or as a profiling section.
How to write it: One per line. Multiple choice: “Label | option1, option2”. Short text: just the label (no “|”).
How to read the results: Tallies for choice fields; a list for text fields.
🔢 Ranked Choice
What it is: Respondents put a short list into priority order (1 = highest).
When to use it: You need a clear first-to-last ordering.
How to write it: A short list of items (3–7 works best).
How to read the results: Each item’s average rank (lower = higher priority).
💰 Budget Allocation
What it is: Respondents distribute a fixed number of points across options.
When to use it: Forcing trade-offs — prioritising spending or effort.
How to write it: The options and the total points (default 100).
How to read the results: The average points each option received.
📈 Importance vs Performance
What it is: Each item is rated twice (1–5): how important it is, and how well it performs today.
When to use it: Deciding what to fix first.
How to write it: A list of items or attributes.
How to read the results: Average importance vs performance — high-importance, low-performance items are your priorities.
📋 Annual Satisfaction
What it is: A combined instrument: rate each service 1–5, a 0–10 recommendation (NPS) question, and one open-text priority question.
When to use it: A recurring yearly pulse of how you’re doing overall.
How to write it: List the services, then edit the NPS and priority wording.
How to read the results: Average per service, an NPS score, and a list of priority comments.
🎯 Priority Ranking (MaxDiff)
What it is: Respondents see small sets of items and choose the most and least important in each, over several rounds.
When to use it: Finding true priorities from a longer list — it forces trade-offs instead of everything scoring highly.
How to write it: List your items, then set how many show per round and how many rounds.
How to read the results: Items ranked by a best-minus-worst score.
⚖️ Design Option Preference
What it is: Compare two competing options: rate the shared features, rate how important the key differences are, then pick an overall preference.
When to use it: Choosing between two designs or proposals with community/customer input.
How to write it: Name the two options, list shared features and key differences, set the preference question.
How to read the results: Feature and difference averages, plus the overall preference split.
Combine templates into one survey
You don’t have to pick just one. Select several templates and they become sections of a single survey — for example a Demographic section, a few Likert statements, and an Open Feedback prompt, all in one. Each section keeps its own question style and its own results.
Build your first survey
- Choose a template — pick one, or several for a multi-section survey.
- Add details — a survey name and an optional introduction shown to respondents.
- Add your questions — each template gives you the right fields.
- Publish — you get a public link to share; responses are anonymous.
- Review results — live charts and averages, with CSV export.