Building forms on Collect is very simple. There are a number of features and validations which you can use to ensure good quality data collection. 

Here are certain points to consider while creating surveys on Collect which can enable you to capture accurate data and perform better analysis.


Using Collect Features for Data Quality 


  • Media Questions: You can use different types of media questions on your survey to ensure that accurate data is captured.
    • Image and Video Questions - To ensure authentic data collection, you can add images and video questions to your questionnaire. Further, through an added setting, you can ensure that your field teams only capture live images during the survey.
  • Location Question - Location questions can be really useful for ensuring that the field teams are capturing data from the location they should be in. This latitude-longitude data can also be used to be plotted on maps. 
  • Data Validations: Validations can be added in multiple question types which help in limiting errors in data collection and getting accurate responses. Here are a few articles which will help you in adding validations:
    1. Adding Validations to Choice Questions
    2. Adding Validations to Numerical Questions
    3. Adding Validations to Image and Location Questions
  • Option Codes: Option codes are aliases to option labels (in single or multiple choice questions) which enable standardization in reporting. Know more about option codes here.
  • Question Keywords: Keywords, simply put, are short aliases to your question titles. You can use keywords as column headers while downloading a report to make them more readable. Know more about keywords here. 
  • Mandatory Questions: While creating a form, below the question title, you will see a checkbox saying “Mandatory question”. It is a good practice to make questions mandatory to eliminate the scope of surveyors skipping questions.
  • Randomize Order: In choice questions, below the box of Option labels, you will see a check box saying “Randomize the order of all options on the app”. This reshuffles the order of options in a question for each response. It is a good practice to keep this box checked to ensure that the surveyor collects accurate information.

 

  • Help Images: You can add help images to questions on your survey to provide additional information to the field teams about the type of data you want captured.
  • Section Breaks: Section breaks help in structuring your surveys better in case multiple categories of information is being collected on the same form. Click here to learn more about section breaks. 


Pro Tip:


Want to create a survey with questions which are conditionally shown depending on the response of another question? Here's an article which can help you add conditional questions.