Dropdown List

A dropdown list works exactly in the same way as single selection does. The only difference is that the choices are organized inside a dropdown list instead of being all visible at the same time.

Dropdown lists are very good when your question has a long list of choices, for example a list of countries can fit into a dropdown list, instead of populating the whole screen.

Moreover, dropdown lists are more user-friendly in that participants can use their keyboards to easily find the option they are looking for, instead of scrolling inside the list. For example if you ask which country your participants are from, and provide a dropdown list of countries for them to answer, they can easily open the list and enter the first letter of their country name, and they will be navigated to all the choices that start with that letter. It makes it easier for them to interact with your surveys.

Also, dropdown lists are integrated with touch-screen devices, and will automatically provide a more finger-friendly way of giving feedback on a small screen. Therefore using a dropdown list will feel more comfortable for your survey participants when giving you their opinions on touch-screen devices.

Tip:

use dropdown lists for questions with more than 7 choices.

Note:

participants can only select one choice.

Settings

After adding a Dropdown menu question to your survey, click or tap on it to activate the Edit Mode and access the settings panel. You can easily customize the Dropdown question, to ask the type of question that works best for your questionnaire. Drop down questions offers the following customization possibilities:

By enabling this settings, you will demand the respondents to answer this question. This means when this setting is ON, respondents have to choose one item from the dropdown list to be able to continue to the next page of your survey, or submit it. If they don’t choose any choice from the dropdown menu, we will visually notify them that they cannot continue to next page or submit the survey, before answering the question. Read more about when you ‘should’ or ‘should not’ require respondents to answer questions in your online questionnaires.

Enabling this setting will allow you to add a large, edge-to-edge image right under the question. If your question needs further explanation using a picture or illustration, you can easily upload it here. Read more about best practices of adding pictures to survey questions.

Additionally, you can add a custom link to the picture after you upload one. Linked images can act as banners, helping you promote something or add incentives for your respondents to finish a survey. They can also help you create download links, or lead users to other pages or your other surveys. Read more about adding links pictures in your survey.

Enabling this randomizes the order choices appear each time the survey is loaded for each respondent. So each individual respondent that opens the dropdown will get a new shuffled combination of choices in the list. This can be used to avoid order-bias, which can happen sometimes when some respondents disappointingly choose the first or last choices from a list, because those are very easy to spot.

Make sure to read more about randomizing order of choices, and learn when & why to use it, or when to avoid it.

Sometimes you may need to explain further, or add tips or instructions for your respondents. Enabling this feature will activate an extra text box in which you can type these instructions. By default, these additional instructions appear as a little button with a question mark inside them, right under the question. When clicked, they expand and show your additional text.

Instead, if you prefer to constantly display this text, please activate “Always visible instructions” option. This will directly display the additional instructions under the question, and respondents do not have to manually click on it to display it. Read more about adding further instructions or tips for survey questions.