Online surveys, online market research and computer-based tasks require a particular interface design approach.

Interface Design and Development

The transparent interface is commonly defined as one that maximises user task completion and minimises interfering factors, such as unnecessary interface complexity or performance.

F&S combine the talents of a vast pedigree of resources to effect the most exacting execution of interface design, survey methods and data collection.

Ensuring ‘ease of use’ is a fundamental aspect of developing survey interfaces. Choice modelling and information acceleration pose difficult usability issues that need to be gracefully solved whilst also minimising bias.

Careful consideration when creating CUI (character user interfaces) and GUI (graphical user interfaces) ensures that respondents can maintain a clear comprehension of the task at hand, whilst easily accessing information to aid comprehension. This is achieved through the reduction of (unnecessary) graphical interference which also enhances survey performance (particularly in web based experiments) and reduces respondent fatigue.

This never precludes a visually refined layout.

‘Suspension of Disbelief’ or ‘Ecological Validity’

Choice tasks should be constructed, and survey instruments designed, to be believable to the respondent.

In theatre and film, there is the idea that the audience has to ‘willingly suspend disbelief’ in order to accept and immerse themselves in the story – i.e. deliberately forget that it’s all make believe and acting. A similar thing is necessary in effective choice research. The task must have all the elements of a realistic, real world choice. Not only should the question be clear, realistic and well posed, but the interface should be well designed, comprehensible, easy to use, and strongly mimic the real world scenario it simulates. If the choice is between jars of pasta sauce, respondents can’t be simply presented with a table of descriptions and prices. They need to see the jars and read the labels. If the choice scenario is an election, the respondent must see ‘how to vote’ cards from the different parties, and be presented with a mock-up of a real voting slip, or voting machine.

In choice research, as in theatre and film, this doesn’t necessarily mean a huge budget or effort. We can achieve this effectively online, but it is crucial not to overlook.

This principle is axiomatic in the literature, where it is called ‘Ecological Validity’.

This principle also intersects with the idea of Incentive Compatibility. If a task is sufficiently realistic, and the information needed to make a choice is easy to assimilate, the respondent will find it easy to access their own innate decision strategy, and answer honestly. They can easily suspend disbelief to find themselves in a familiar situation (standing in front of a shelf of pasta sauce jars in the supermarket, for example) and will answer almost by instinct. Conversely, they are less likely to answer lazily than if it were harder to understand the question and the alternatives.