Welcome to the Questionnaire Builder 1 'How To' Guide

Here you can learn about the basic features of building questionnaires in Gorilla by exploring the list of questions on the left.

Not sure where to start? Try one of these quick-start shortcuts:

• Learn about the Questionnaire Builder
• Learn about Questionnaire Widgets
• Learn about Embedded Data in the Questionnaire

Looking for more information on a specific Questionnaire Widget? - Check out the Questionnaire Builder 1 Widget Tooling Reference Guide.

If you can't find an answer to your question here please get in touch with us via our contact form. We are always happy to help you, simply tell us a little about what you are trying to achieve and where you are getting stuck.

What is a Questionnaire?

Questionnaires allow you to gather information from your participants without reaction time data.

Questionnaires consist of blocks of Rich Text content (which can be a mixture of Markdown and/or HTML) and Response widgets, which offer a range of ways for participants to be asked questions.

Questionnaires can be used to collect demographic information or information about your participants that is specific to your study or the task itself.

Questionnaires can also just be used to display text, images and videos to participants, and so can be used to provide additional direction within an experiment.

For advanced users; information from a questionnaire can be used in conjunction with a 'Branch' Tree Node to change which path a participant takes through your Experiment Tree.

How do I Start a New Questionnaire?

A new Gorilla Questionnaire can be created within a Project by pressing the 'Create' button and selecting 'Questionnaire Builder 1' from the dropdown menu.

In the create menu that appears, enter a name for your new Questionnaire and then press 'OK'.

You will then be redirected to the Questionnaire Builder for your newly created questionnaire.

Create Dropdown Menu: Selecting Questionnaire from the create Menu Dropdown. Selection highlighted by the blue box in the image above.

Create menu: With the 'Create New' option selected; Enter a name for your new Questionnaire and press OK.

What is the Questionnaire Builder and how do I Use it?

In Gorilla you create questionnaires using the Questionnaire Builder.

The Questionnaire Builder interface is divided into two major sections:

1. Left-hand side: This is where you build your Questionnaire. Here you can;
   • Build your Questionnaire by adding new items called Questionnaire Widgets.
   • Edit any existing Questionnaire Widgets you have already added to your questionnaire.
   • Reorder current Questionnaire Widgets to create the questionnaire exactly as you want.
   • Delete existing Questionnaire Widgets when you no longer want them in your questionnaire.

1. Right-hand side: Is a live preview of what your Questionnaire will look like. Here you can;
   • Preview what your questionnaire will look like to your participants.
   • Test functionality and layout of your questionnaire as you go.

The image below shows the positions of the Questionnaire Builder and Live Preview sections of the Interface:

How do I Build a Questionnaire?

A Questionnaire is built in a similar way to creating a task with the task builder, though the interface is much simpler..

When building a new questionnaire the first step is to add a Questionnaire Widget, here's how:

1. Click the Edit button.
2. Click the Add Widget Here button in the left-hand 'building' section.
3. A New Questionnaire Widget menu will appear (see example image below).
4. Select the type of Questionnaire Widget you wish to add into your questionnaire.
5. Click 'Create'.

There are over 20 different Questionnaire Widgets to choose from, allowing you to present and/or gather data from your participants in a variety of different ways.

Once you've added a Questionnaire Widgets to your Questionnaire, it will appear on the left-hand side. The Widget will appear with a title bar displaying the name of the widget type, and a list of options beneath it. Enter content for your Widget and you will see it displayed automatically on the right-hand side.

When you have added a few widgets modifying your questionnaire is straightforward:

On the title bar of a widget, there are two arrows, which can be used to reorder your questionnaire widget. There is also a cross, which allows you to delete the selected widget from your questionnaire entirely.

When you are happy with your questionnaire, or wish to save your progress, press the green 'Commit Version' button. You will then be able to use your Questionnaire in your experiments.

Go through to the next page of this guide to find out more about Questionnaire Widgets. If you have a specific question about a particular Questionnaire Widget the best place to look is in the Questionnaire Widget Tooling Reference Guide.

What are Questionnaire Widgets?

Questionnaire Widgets are the building blocks of questionnaire creation.

There are currently over 20 different Questionnaire Widgets for you to choose from, allowing you to present and/or gather data from your participants in a variety of ways.

You can create any questionnaire you wish by simply combining Questionnaire Widgets in different orders. Learn how to add Questionnaire Widgets into your questionnaires.

Broadly speaking the Questionnaire Widgets fall into three categories: Content Widgets, Response Widgets and Layout Widgets.

There is also the Script Widget which is a stand-alone widget useful for all questionnaire related coding, and the Switch Widget.

The Switch Widget combines with a Switch Node in the Experiment Tree, and either a Task containing a Switch Zone, or another Questionnaire containing a Switch Widget, to allow participants to switch between two tasks.

Below are the some of the Questionnaire Widgets you will find in Gorilla's Questionnaire Builder:

You can find out more detailed information about each Questionnaire Widget in the Tooling Reference Guide.

What are Content Widgets?

Content Widgets allow you to add content to your questionnaire in the form of, text, images, links etc. For example, you may wish to add text content such as a title for your questionnaire or a set of instructions for your participant.

Here is an example of a content widget - the Rich Text Widget:

In the content box of the widget you add the text you wish to be displayed. In the example above you can see that the content has been modified using Markdown. All text content can be formatted and stylised using Markdown and/or HTML, this means you can easily make your questionnaire look exactly how you wish!

Learn more about text formatting using our Markdown and HTML guides.

What are Response Widgets?

Response Widgets allow you to ask questions and record the responses of your participants. You can always recognise response widgets because they are the only widgets which have a 'Key' configuration setting.

Here is an example of a response widget - the Dropdown Widget:

In the example above you can see that below the response widget title there is a list of configuration settings. While most settings may be self-explanatory, you can always find out more about each and every widget in the Questionnaire Widget Tooling Reference Guide.

Other than the 'Key' there are two other configuration settings, pictured in the example above, which the majority of response widgets share: 'Allow Missing' and 'Write to Embedded Data'.

1. If Allow Missing is checked: A participant will not have to answer this question in order to move forward through your questionnaire. If the participant declines to answer the question it will appear blank in your 'Metrics Spreadsheet'.
2. If Write to Embedded Data is checked: Gorilla will temporarily remember any information recorded as 'embedded data' so it can be recalled and used later in your experiment. Writing to Embedded data will not effect what is recorded in your 'Metrics Spreadsheet'. You can find out more in our embedded data guide.

What are Layout Widgets?

Layout Widgets allow you to customise how your questionnaire is presented to a participant.

Here is an example of a layout widget - the Page Break Widget:

Notice you can now move between pages in the Live Preview:

The Page Break Widget is used to separate out your questions across multiple pages.

Notice how in the above example there are no configuration settings or content inputs in this Layout Widget. That because all Layout Widgets are controlled in the Options menu found under Settings which is located next to the 'Preview Questionnaire' button on the top-right of the Questionnaire Builder.

Locating the Settings Menu:

Where you can change additional layout options such as the Next and Back buttons:

What is the Script Widget?

The Script Widget allows you to add some customised code to your questionnaire in order to do post-processing of your questionnaire data.

Here is an example of the Script Widget:

The Script Widget can be useful if you wish to create your own scoring system for your questionnaire responses, or else alter the standard scoring of the Widgets. You may also wish to calculate overall scores for a participant which you later use to branch participants in your experiment. You can view a demonstration of this in our script widget tutorial.

The Script Widget will accept code written in either javascript or Typescript. Learn more about the Script Widget from the Scripting in the Questionnaire Builder section below.

How do I Send my Questionnaire to Participants?

To send a Questionnaire to participants, you need to add it to an Experiment.

The Experiment Tree forms a framework around your Questionnaire that allows participants to enter the Questionnaire. From the Experiment Builder Recruitment Tab, you can control entry of participants into your Experiment. From the Participants tab, you can manage your list of participants, and from the Data tab, you can download the responses to your Questionnaire.

Check out the next page for more information about Experiments, and how to add your Questionnaire to an Experiment!

How do I use a Questionnaire as Part of an Experiment?

To use a Questionnaire as part of an Experiment:

1. In your Project select the Experiment you wish to add your Questionnaire in to.
2. Click the Edit button on the right of the green info bar at the top:
3. Click the red Add New Node button on the top-left hand side:
4. A Choose New Node menu will appear. Select Questionnaire.
5. Select the Questionnaire you wish to add to your experiment.
6. In the Experiment Tree, your Questionnaire will appear as an un-connected green Node.
7. Connect the Questionnaire Node into your Experiment Tree by linking the arrows to and from it.

If you would like more detailed information on adding Nodes to your Experiment Tree read the How To: Experiment Tree guide.

As well as gathering data on your participants, a questionnaire can be used in conjunction with a Branch Node to influence the progression of other tasks or your experiment as a whole. For example, you could end an experiment early or make a following task harder or easier depending on a participant's answers.

To do this you must check the 'write to embedded data' option in your response widgets. Find out more about embedded data and how to use it in our Embedded Data walkthrough.

How do I Download Participant Data?

When participants have completed your Questionnaire, you can download data in the form of a metrics spreadsheet. You can download your participant data from the Data tab of your Experiment tree. Here, you should click on the red Download Experiment Data button.

You will be presented with a pop-up window that will ask you to generate your data. This window allows you to choose the filetype you wish to download your data in, and select the timeframe for collected data.

For Questionnaire data, you also have the choice of either Long-Form data (one row for each trial) or Short-Form data (one row per participant).

Once you have selected the settings appropriate for your data, select Generate Data.

This can often take up to a few hours to generate, depending on the size of your experiment tree. There is an option to receive email updates once your data have finished generating. If this takes longer than 24 hours, we recommend you get in touch with our support team via the contact form.

Once data generation is complete, you are able to download the spreadsheet(s) and view the data metrics.

Markdown

Markdown is used throughout Gorilla in the Task Builder and Questionnaire Builder to add styling and to format text.

It is a very simple 'markup' language that can be used to format sections of text, providing a similar set of functionality to text editors such as Word. For example, you can create titles, embolden or italicise text or create numbered/bullet-pointed lists, among many other things.

The other key feature of Markdown is that you can include regular HTML code.

Below is a guide for common formatting in Markdown:

HTML

HTML, like Markdown, can be used to format sections of text within your Questionnaires or Tasks. HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is an 'extensive language' which is used by all websites to communicate how information on a web page should be displayed within a browser.

In Gorilla HTML can be used instead of markdown to add styling to text, such as to embolden, italicise, colour or text alignment. Create titles, numbered/bullet-pointed lists and tables. It can also be used to link to external pages or embed images or videos.

When writing HTML 'elements' we must always use what is known as an opening tag (e.g. <p>) and a closing tag (e.g. </p>).

Markdown is a simpler language for formatting text content. However, you may wish to use HTML if you are more familiar with it, or if you need more flexibility in formatting things in a way Markdown can’t, such as adding colour to text.

Below is a guide to basic formatting in HTML:

How do I use Embedded Data?

Embedded data is data collected about a participant's responses that can be used to alter the experiment (in real time) depending on their response. Essentially, embedded data is information you can ’carry’ from one part of your task or questionnaire to others within the same experiment.

Here are some examples of when to use embedded data:

• You may want participants to take different routes through your Experiment Tree depending upon what answers they give in your questionnaire.
• You could end an experiment early if participants answers do not match criteria needed for your experiment.
• You can make a following task easier or harder depending on participants' answers.

Learn how you can manipulate your experiment using Embedded Data through our Embedded Data Guide.

Scripting in the Questionnaire Builder

The best place to learn about the Script Widget is our Walkthrough: Scripting in Questionnaire Builder 1 which gives a thorough step-by-step on how to use the Script Widget in the Questionnaire Builder.

Alternatively, if you already know how to code, you may prefer to learn about the Script Widget via this Classic Example: Big 5 Personality TIPI

When you are ready to start coding your own scripts be sure to also check out the [Gorilla API]/support/tools/legacy-tools/task-builder-1/gorilla-api#overview).

Troubleshooting

For general troubleshooting advice visit our troubleshooting page.

If you don't find an answer to your question reach out to our friendly support team via the contact form - we are happy to help!