Survey Guidelines and Recommendations

When you create a new survey, you will have the opportunity to select a system-defined answer scale among several choices. These scales offer commonly used answer lists such as Importance, Quality, Quantity, Size, Frequency, and so on. Please review them carefully before creating your own custom scale because these predefined lists are easy to use and provide consistency for respondents.

You can also create your own custom answers but keep in mind these tips:

• By design, you are limited to a  minimum of two (2) and maximum of ten (10) possible choices
   
• Each answer is limited to 50 characters for easier viewing and generally a few keywords are always better
  
  
• Preferably, order your answers from less to more
  
  
• Choose "Edit Scale Options ..." to start a brand new blank scale of your design
  
  
• When creating your own custom scale, review it carefully and make sure all possible answers have been reflected by your choices
  
  
• In a custom scale, it is usually recommended to list "Other" as a final choice to capture possible answers you may not have thought of
  
  
• Remember, once you posted a question, it cannot be changed. If you forgot to include a choice, it will be too late!
  
  

The way you phrase your question is important to avoid confusion and mistakes. Before posting, we recommend these practices to improve clarity of your surveys: 

• Re-read your question several times. If possible, ask another person to review your question to ensure it reflects your inquiry accurately
  
  
• Review your question for grammar and spelling mistakes
  
  
• Since SOS is an application with global reach and does not support localization at the moment, it is advised to write your questions using english only. This will ensure maximum exposure and participation
  
  
• Include proper context in your question by specifying details like people, location, timeframe, products, etc. This provides clarity and focus to the audience and avoid possible confusion and misleading answers
  
  
• However, try to be concise, longer questions may tend to be less clear and increase the chance readers will misinterpret the survey. Similarly, avoid run-on sentences, break up any statements in logical parts.
  
  
• In the same vein as above, avoid extra details that are not necessary and could pose a dangerous bias in answering. For instance, asking "Beer and pizza famously goes together for many people, what drink do you prefer to have with your pizza? " This question plants an answer in the mind of respondents and could skew results. Avoid providing leading questions.
  
  

All parts of your surveys (Subjects, Questions, and Answers) must comply with our and Terms of Service agreement. We reserve the right to remove surveys that violate these agreements, especially if they contain:

• Foul Language
  
  
• Hate speech
  
  
• Aggressive speech
  
  
• Intolerance and racism
  
  
• Content designed to troll, mock, or marginalize people or situations
  
  

Your privacy is guaranteed in several ways on the site:

• When creating a new account, we do not ask for your fullname, birhdate (only birth year), address, phone or any other personal identification detail. Even in the event of a system breach, personally identifying data would never be exposed.
  
  
• We recommend you select a Username that is unique but does not reflect your real name. This is not a social media site that relies on certifiable personal identity.
  
  
• The system gathers some biographical and demographical information when you register an account but this information is never distributed to 3rd parties or even exposed as SOS does not use cookies
  
  
• No payment information is stored on our site
  
  
• Your answers to surveys are always Anonymous