From the early days of the internet, people have completed online forms & surveys where all the questions are shown at the same time, on the one page. You start at the top left and complete the questions down the page then click Submit. There is now another way to set up online forms that gives more flexibility for businesses.
The shift to one question at a time
Using conversation-style online forms, businesses can now ask one question at a time, reducing the visual clutter and potentially increasing client engagement. The main difference is that the client doesn’t see all the questions on the one page but is asked text-based questions, multiple-choice questions etc with the potential for each question to build upon the previous answers.
One Question At A Time Software
From the hundreds of available options for online forms and surveys, there are a handful of apps that can deliver beautiful forms & surveys, asking one question at a time. Our top picks for software to help your business use the latest online form software that customers love are:
SurveySparrow
SurveySparrow has created a modern, engaging platform with all the features you need for creating forms that ask one question at a time. They offer all the standard conversational form options but also provide advanced features like Question Matrix, Drag & Drop for clients, Rank Order questions and more for more complex survey-creation needs.
Typeform
One of the front-runners in conversational surveys, Typeform makes it easy to use Hidden Fields, previous answers to current questions and the one field at a time format to create conversations in forms, surveys and simple chatbots. They include a time to completion automatically so people know their time commitment before starting their survey.
Zigpoll
Looking for one question at a time software that can be used for customer surveys, single question quizzes and quick pop-up chats? Zigpoll provides a quick survey that can be used in your e-commerce store (Shopify, Woocommerce, BigCommerce etc) or for getting feedback from your clients on your service, software or sales process.
Outgrow
Perfect for forms, quizzes, assessments and surveys, Outgrow shines for creating one question at a time survey that can be offered to staff or to potential clients to help in engaging them and making the right buying decision.
So, you’ve got the tools to create your one question at a time survey, but should you do it? Let’s look at the pros and cons of creating a one question at a time form or survey.
Pros
- Asking one question at a time aids in engagement because you’re focused on the task at hand. You’ve got one question to answer right now and you can’t see all the other questions – making it feel more like a conversation than a multiple-choice exam.
- The layout can help a survey respondent build momentum as the questions appear in the same space on the screen and they can complete them quickly
- The survey can be completed faster because of the lack of scrolling, pointing and clicking etc that comes from a typical survey. Many conversational forms allow for keyboard shortcuts that make answering multiple-choice questions lightning fast (cue the Jeopardy music).
- Allows you to ask a question a the start of a survey and reference the answer later in the survey. It might be as simple as asking for a first name i.e. Zoe, then referencing Zoe in a future question e.g. “Thanks Zoe for letting us know”. By having the questions one by one, the respondent doesn’t see an impersonal single-page form but gets asked for details that are then repeated back to them.
- Conversational surveys can be easier to analyze. When all of the questions are asked as part of a single conversation, it is easier to track and compare responses. This can help you get a more accurate understanding of your data.
- Allows you to create a choose-your-own-adventure style survey where the answer choices they make lead them to different survey questioning. This isn’t possible when all the questions are shown on the first page.
Cons
- Can potentially reduce motivation to complete the survey if the respondent feels like the survey is taking too long. As the respondent can’t see all the questions, they aren’t reminded of their progress as visually.
- Can be too much of a change from the behaviour that respondents are used to in that type of form e.g. a contact form is usually a set of 3-5 questions on a single page. By switching the format, respondents might assume the process will take too long.
- One question at a time surveys can get complex with conditional logic, branching, referencing past answers etc so they can require more training in using the tools.
Should you use one question at a time software?
If you’re only using simple forms for internal, staff use then you might want to stick to using Google Forms or a simple form-builder. You’ll get something free, fast and easy to use. If you’re looking to increase engagement on surveys that create tangible business value, like lead generation forms, upsells, customer satisfaction surveys etc, you will want to look at how to get started with one question at a time survey software. By adding the personalization and speed of these surveys to your toolkit, you’ll get better results in a more modern format.
