The survey builder

The Build tab is where you write a survey and decide who sees what. Every question is a card on a map, and lines between the cards are the routes people take. The menu on the left adds cards, the map (or the outline) in the middle shows the survey, and the panel on the right, the inspector, edits whatever you have selected. The builder needs a wider screen: on a phone the menu and the inspector are hidden.

To rename the survey, click its title at the top of the page and type. The title isn't part of the design, so you can rename a survey even once it is live.

The Screener box and the Study box

A survey's map always has two boxes. The Screener at the top decides who takes part, and only questions in it can screen people out. The Study below it is the survey itself. Each box grows around the cards you put in it.

To move a question from one box to the other, select it and click Move to Study or Move to Screener under the card (the inspector has the same button), or drag the card into the other box. Only that card moves; the cards either side of it join up. To move a whole box with everything in it, drag it by its label. Clicking a box's label picks it as the box you are adding to.

Adding cards

The menu on the left has two tabs, Screener and Study, matching the boxes. Click an item to add it to that box, after its last card, or drag it into either box.

The Screener tab has Who can take part (ready-made demographic questions such as age and gender, matched to the panel, with More panel profiles to search when the panel's full list is available), Screen people out (Terminate, Quota, If / then) and Screening questions, with Every question type below.
The Study tab groups the question types (Choice, Scales and ratings, Open answers, Content and consent), then Logic and flow, Quality checks (a ready-made Attention check) and Demographics (profiling), which describe people without screening anyone out.

Each question type is described in survey question types.

Editing a card

Click a card to open it in the inspector. Or type straight onto the card: double-click its wording, or one of its answers, and type. Enter or clicking away finishes (Shift+Enter starts a new line in the wording), and Escape finishes too, keeping what you typed.

The inspector shows the selected card's own problems at the top, then its settings. For a question that is the Question type, the Question wording, Respondents must answer, Media, Answer options, Settings, Show only if, Quality checks and Placement, then Where people go and the buttons at the bottom. Each is covered in survey question types and survey logic and the screener.

In an answer list, press Enter at the end of a row to add the next one, use the up and down arrows beside a row to reorder it, and the cross to remove it. A list holds up to 200 answers (a grid, up to 50 columns). New answers go in above any "None of these" style answer. Answers left empty are tidied away when you move on to another card.

The Compact cards / Full cards menu above the map sets how much each card shows. Zoom with the buttons in the map's corner, or pan around with the small overview map.

Selecting several cards

Hold Shift and drag across the map to draw a box around several cards, or hold ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows) and click cards to add them one at a time. With two or more questions selected, a bar at the top of the map offers Put on one page. Copy, cut, paste and delete work on everything selected.

Selecting a line

Click a line to see where it runs from, on which answer, and to where. Put the line back undoes any dragging of its middle handle, and Remove connection deletes the line.

Lines and wiring

Each card has connectors on its right. Drag from one to another card to send those people there. A choice question has a connector for each answer as well as one for All answers. While no answer has a line of its own, the All answers line carries everyone. On a question with one answer per person, give one answer its own line and the other answers each get a line to where All answers went, so nobody is lost. On an optional question, a line labeled Skipped stays for people who don't answer. Answers that all go to one place fold back into one line.

If a new line would break the flow (a circle, a question nobody can reach, a Study question screening people out), the builder tells you what would go wrong and asks: Yes, connect it anyway or No, cancel the line.

The inspector's Where people go section lists every way out of the selected card with a Goes to picker, including New: screen out here and New: end of the survey. The survey starts at its first card; use Start here to change that.

Line colors

Thick teal lines: everyone goes on.
Thinner lines in the card's own color: an answer, condition or split sent its own way, so you can trace a fan of lines back to its card.
Red dashed lines: into a Terminate. Red means screened out, and nothing else on the map is red.

Drag the handle in the middle of a line to sweep it around cards in the way, and double-click the handle to put it back. This only changes the drawing, never the route.

Pages, blocks and loops

Every question is its own page unless you group it. Select two or more question cards and click Put on one page, or drop one question onto another, to show them together with one Next button. On a page, an answer can only screen people out or end the survey. To send people different ways by an answer on a page, select the page and use Send people by an answer to: pick one of the page's questions and an If / then goes straight after the page, with a line for each answer. Stop, send everyone the same way takes it out again (if that would leave a question nobody reaches, you're asked first, with Stop anyway or Keep it).

A question's Placement section has an Inside a block or loop picker to put it in (or take it out of) a block, loop or page, and Start a page with this question to make a new page from it. A selected block, loop or page lists its Questions, each with Take out. Deleting a block, loop or page keeps its questions.

A Block groups questions. Its Order can be In the order shown, In a random order for each respondent or Rotated, and Show these questions on one page puts them on a single screen. A Loop repeats its questions for each item in a list you write under Repeat for each (for example, each brand). It can show the items in a random order, and Only the items picked at limits it to the items someone chose at an earlier question. Drag questions onto a block or loop to add them. A loop's Each item's questions on one page shows all of its questions together, once per item.

A Random split places each person in one of its cells at random, in proportion to each cell's weight, and always the same cell if they come back. If / then, Quota and Terminate are covered in survey logic and the screener.

The outline

Switch between Map and Outline above the map. The outline lists the survey in order, page by page, in Screener, Study, Endings and Not connected (cards nobody reaches yet). Both views edit the same survey. Where a card sits on the map doesn't change the order; the lines do.

In the outline you can:

Type a question's wording, or a logic card's name, straight into its row.
Add a question on a new page at the end of the Screener or the Study, Add a new page after this under any page, or Add a question to this page. A new question starts as a single choice; change its type in the inspector.
Reorder with Move up and Move down on a card, or Move page up and Move page down on a page. Or drag a question by its handle onto another page, or between pages for a page of its own.
Delete a page with its bin button. Its questions stay, one per page.
Pick where people go with the Goes to picker on every card, and use Send people by an answer to on a page.
Drag an item from the menu on the left straight into the outline.

Map checks

The bar under the map counts problems, warnings and tips. It turns red and reads Fix before going live while anything would stop the survey working. Open it and click a check to jump to the card (or line) it is about. Problems must be fixed before the survey can go live; warnings are worth a second look; tips are advice that could save money and never need acting on. When all is well it says "Every path reaches an end, and nothing is missing." Typical checks: a card nobody can reach, a question with nowhere to go next, no path to an end, a question with no wording or a blank answer, quota cells that don't add up to 100%, and a consent question whose No doesn't lead to a Terminate. A test link can't be made while there are problems.

Saving, undo and copying

The survey saves itself as you work, and the status beside the tools says so. Save draft saves straight away. The status reads Unsaved changes, Saving…, Saved or All changes saved. If a save fails it says Not saved with a Try again button. If a save can't get through, your changes are kept on your computer and offered back next time, with Restore them or Discard. If the survey was changed somewhere else (in another tab, say), the builder says Changed elsewhere: reload the page, and your own changes are offered back.

Keyboard shortcuts

Use ⌘ on a Mac and Ctrl on Windows.

Undo and Redo: ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z (or ⌘Y), or the arrow buttons beside Save draft. Up to 200 steps. Inside a text box, ⌘Z undoes your typing instead.
Copy, cut and paste cards: ⌘C, ⌘X and ⌘V. Pasting puts a copy on the map with its own lines between the copied cards. You can paste into another survey too; any rule that reads a question you didn't copy shows up in the map checks.
Delete or Backspace deletes the selected cards or line.
Option-drag (Alt-drag on Windows) a card to copy it.
Escape closes the Preview and the Test link panel.

Select a card and use Duplicate or Delete in the inspector to do the same with the mouse. A cut block or loop takes its questions with it.

Once the survey is live

When a survey goes live its design is locked, and the builder says Live: the design is locked. To change it, duplicate the survey and edit the copy.