Styles

▪Question, response, and information text: Text defined in the script: color, size and display effects for question texts, categorical response texts, and information (banner) texts.

▪Categorical response lists: Whether responses are displayed with check boxes, radio buttons, or in some other format; whether to display responses in rows or columns and how many rows or columns to use; and how to indent response lists.

▪Selection boxes for categorical responses in non-categorical lists: The type of selection box to display for categorical responses that are defined in the codes() portion of a numeric, text, or date question. Typically these are the special no answer, don't know, and refused responses.

▪Input boxes for numeric, text, date, and other specify responses: Input boxes for numeric, text, and date responses: size, color and dimensions of the input box; display methods for boxes, including those for Other Specify responses.

▪Styles for navigation buttons: Size and color of the buttons; and size, color, and display effects for the text on the buttons.

▪Grids: Color, size, and display effects for row and column heading texts; border type, size and color; row height; column width; and space between cell content and cell borders.

Setting styles also covers the following:

▪Playing audio files to respondents and recording responses to text questions. See Playing sound files and recording responses.

▪The relative alignment and position of the question text and response portions of questions. See Alignment and positioning.

In most cases, you can specify styles in the metadata section or in the routing section. If you specify the same characteristic for the same item in both sections, the specification in the routing section overrides the one in the metadata section. So, if the metadata section defines a question with red text and the routing section specifies it as green, respondents see green question text for that question.

The advantages of defining styles in the metadata section are that it is easy and they carry forward into other products such as UNICOM Intelligence Reporter - Survey Tabulation.

The advantage of specifying styles in the routing section is that you can specify the styles dynamically based on a previous response. For example, you could display the text of an Other Specify response in a different color according to whether or not the respondent has chosen Other Specify at the previous question. You cannot do this in the metadata section. Another advantage is that you can vary the styles between CATI and Web interviews, using simpler styles for CATI and more visually interesting styles for Web interviews.