Advanced Grid Questions Coming Soon to Magpi

Last week, we talked about the upcoming addition of barcodes, signatures, and drag-and-drop ranking questions to our Magpi mobile data collection system — but those aren’t the only new question types coming soon. In this post we’ll be talking about our new grid questions, which will help users collect data more quickly and efficiently.

Grid Questions Example: Radio Grid

Grid questions, also called matrix questions, are some of the most popular ways to present questions on screen. A grid “question” is really multiple, related questions presented at the same time. An example of a “radio grid” might be a survey about a hotel experience:

Three radio button questions combined in a radio grid

Radio (or “radio button”) questions allow the user to select only one of a set of multiple choice responses, and in the example above, you can see that each row of the table is really a separate radio question — but each row has the same response options (poor, OK, wonderful). So the example above is really three individual questions.

In each row above, the user has selected a single rating. The data set for a single respondent to this radio grid “question” will have a column for each of the separate radio questions (check-in, room, amenities):

Different Approaches for Different Screen Sizes

Magpi will soon offer grid questions, which will enable mobile data collection in this time-saving way. You will have to consider the screen size of your devices, however, to determine if grid questions will be presented well. For example, the grid above might be too wide, and therefore require the user to scroll to the right to see all the options:

On a small screen as shown, you might prefer to make each row of the radio grid above (check-in, room, amenities), a separate radio button question:

Checkbox Grid Questions

The checkbox grid is another common matrix question type. In it, multiple options can be selected per row. In this example, the respondent is asked to answer multiple questions about each hotel service:

Six checkbox questions combined in a checkbox grid

Since every single cell in the grid can be checked or unchecked, the example above is really six questions combined in one display. If you break them down, they would be:

Did you use the pool this visit?

Did you use the pool on a previous visit?

Did you use the gym this visit?

Did you use the gym on a previous visit?

Did you use the restaurant this visit?

Did you use the restaurant on a previous visit?

So the dataset for this checkbox grid question would have six columns, each containing the yes/no answer to the six questions.

Number Grid Questions

Number grid questions, just like the radio and checkbox examples shown above, allow you to pack numerous related number questions into a single display. One example might be from supply chain management:

Six number questions combined in a number grid

In this example, as in the checkbox grid above, we can easily see that we’re really asking six questions, but it’s very useful to present all six at the same time — especially if you’re using a larger-screen mobile device.

More to Come!

We’ll be introducing even more innovative new question types, and other features, over 2017. Watch this space for updates, and thanks again for using Magpi!

Originally published at Magpi.