In this article
Single, Multi, Grid, Multi Grid, 3D-Grid, Ranking, and List questions have the Answer List Sorting property towards the top of the question details overlay. The options in this drop-down list control the display order of the answer list (all the specified question types) and scale (Grid only).
Figure 1 - The Answer list sorting drop-down options
The items can be displayed:
- In order – in the order that they appear in the list. Note that you can adjust the order of the items in the list.
- Randomized – in pseudo-random order. The order will be different every time the question is accessed, to avoid bias.
- Rotated – the list is shifted and rotated by one position for each new response, again to avoid bias.
- Flipped - will alternate between displaying the list top-bottom or bottom-top for different respondents.
- Alphabetically sorted - will sort the list alphabetically based on the labels (in the current language).
Note: When the answer list contains group headings, the Answer list sorting property controls the order in which the items inside each group are displayed. If the list does not contain any group heading items, then the Answer list sorting property controls the order of all the items in the list. If you have more than one group in the answer list, then the order of the groups is controlled by the Group display order which is set in the question's Properties sheet (go to Question Properties and Options for more information). Note that if some items are in groups and some are not, the position of any item that is not in a group will be controlled by the Group display order.
Moving Answers
Once you have created your list of answers for a question, you can change the order in which they are presented to the respondent. If you want to have the answers presented in for example alphabetical order, or randomly, you can select one of the options in the Answer List Sorting drop-down. If you wish to display the answers in a specific order, then you can select In Order from the drop-down, then build the list in the desired order.
However you may need to add items to the list, or change the display order. In this case you can then drag and drop the answers to the desired location in the list. Place your mouse pointer over the Move Item icon for the answer so that the cross-arrows icon appear, then click on the icon and drag it to the desired location in the list. The location where it will be placed when dropped is indicated by a blue dotted line.
Figure 2 - Moving an answer in the list
All changes are saved automatically, and will be incorporated into the survey the next time it is launched.