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Effects Of Using Visual Design Principles To Group Response Options In Web Surveys, Jolene D. Smyth, Don A. Dillman, Leah M. Christian, Michael J. Stern

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In this paper, we show that in Web questionnaires verbal and visual languages can be used to create groups and subgroups of information, which influence how respondents process Web questionnaires. Following Schwarz (1996; and also Schwarz, Grayson, & Knäuper, 1998) we argue that respondents act as cooperative communicators who use formal features of the questionnaire to help guide them through the survey conversation. Using data from three Web surveys of random samples of Washington State University undergraduates, we found that when response options are placed in close graphical proximity to each other and separated from other options, respondents perceive visual …