By Ann Ray
On July 28, 2006
Updated October 9, 2012

One page per question syndrome

A common design for surveys is to make them like a PowerPoint slide show, with one question on each page. In practice, what this does is make the survey longer for respondents, which is a good way to irritate them and increase your abandonment rate. For illustration, let's consider a modest size survey:

Five individual questions
Two Five question grids
Five demographics

The one page per question approach will add a break after each of the 10 individual questions and each of the two grids. A more moderate approach will group questions, with breaks after the first set of 5 individual questions, each grid, and then again after the set of 5 demographics.

The Respondent Experience
One question / page	One section / page
Click to answer Question 1 Click to submit Page 1 Wait for Page 2 Click to answer Question 2 Click to submit Page 2 Wait for Page 3 Click to answer Question 3 Click to submit Page 3 Wait for Page 4 Click to answer Question 4 Click to submit Page 4 Wait for Page 5 Click to answer Question 5 Click to submit Page 5 Wait for Page 6 Click 5 times to answer Grid 1 Click to submit Page 6 ... Wait for Page 13 - Thanks	Click 5 times to answer Questions 1-5 Click to submit Page 1 Wait for Page 2 Click 5 times to answer Grid 1 Click to submit Page 2 Wait for Page 3 ... Wait for Page 5 - Thanks

Total Scores
	One question / page	One section / page
Question answers	10	10
Page submits	12	4
Total clicks	22	14
Waits for page loads	13	5

Even in a best case scenario where the respondents are on broadband and the Web server is lightning fast, a page load will take a couple seconds. You may think that's short, but any time someone is asked to sit twiddling their mouse pointer can seem long—especially when the wait is longer than the preceding action. Google perceived wait time if you want to learn more about how people view time and how it impacts satisfaction.

The best survey page lengths tend to be somewhere in the middle. Respondents do know how to scroll, but a page that goes on and on and on can be awkward as well. Try to create pages that break at logical places such as section headings. You also want a similar number of questions on each page (or as much as you can with skips) as this makes the pace feel smoother for respondents.

And whatever you do, add a progress bar! Any survey over two pages should have a graphical progress bar or "Page x of y" at the top of each page.

Filed under:
Questionnaires