Accessibility In Qualtrics

Qualtrics has dozens of different question formats as well as other survey design options;
several of these are not accessible.This guide will help you determine what parts of your survey
may not be accessible and methods of correcting the situation.

You should always strive to make your survey as accessible as possible. Usually, the
accessible version of a question or design option is the best since it is a simpler form and
makes it easier for any respondent to answer. Bear in mind, though, that there may be some
instances when there is no alternative. Gathering your data in a manner that will allow you to
analyze it appropriately should be your first concern.

Qualtrics has a help page for accessibility: https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-

platform/survey-module/survey-tools/check-survey-accessibility/

Testing your survey’s accessibility

Qulatrics has a tool to test your survey’s accessibility. This tool will test:
● The “next” and “back” button text - graphics and symbols can be difficult for
screen readers to interpret.
● The survey title as displayed in a browser tab - this will identify the tab with the
survey
● Question numbering - this helps to ensure proper sequence.
● Show question number to respondent - this helps the respondent
● Web accessibility of each question type - some question types are not accessible

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To test your survey’s accessibility, go to Tools, Review, and Check Survey Accessibility

It will run a test and return your results:

Let’s take a look at each of these suggestions.

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Next and Previous Buttons

The default Next and Previous button text in Qualtrics is “>>” and “<<” respectively. As of
August 2019, Syracuse University has changed this default to arrows, which are acceptable.
Surveys created before this date will still have the old version and need to be changed before
you distribute your survey. To do so, go to Look & Feel:

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Default Survey Title

You can change the default survey title by going to Survey Options:

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Number the survey questions and show export tags

The next two suggestions, “Number the survey questions” and “Enable survey option to show
export tags” are related so we will discuss them together.

By default, Qualtrics will number your questions Q1, Q2, Q3 and so on in the order in which they
are created. If you change the questions order after they have been created, Qualtrics will not,
by default, re-number the questions. You can re-number the questions by going to Tools, then
Auto-number questions:

By clicking on Sequential Numbering or Block Numbering, Qualtrics will automatically renumber

all of your questions in the proper order.

“Export Tags” in Qualtrics actually refers to column headers in Excel or variable names in
SPSS. While you are still in Qualtrics, they refer to question numbers. By default, the question
numbers are not displayed to the respondent on the survey. You can change this by going to
Survey Options and select “Show Question Numbers”

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There are two important caveats you should be aware of if you choose to show the question
numbers:
1. If you use Survey Flow, Display Logic, Skip Logic, or Question Randomization, then the
question numbers will be out of sequence.
2. If you change the export tags from Q1, Q2 to text like “gender” and “age,” then the
changed text is what will be displayed on the survey.

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Questions that do not meet web accessibility standards

If you use a question type that is not accessible, such as a Heat Map, you will receive a
message like this:

If a question is flagged as non-accessible, you will most likely be able to find an

accessible alternative. There are some question types, such as Hot Spots and MaxDiff for which
there is no alternative. In these instances, you will simply have to use the non-accessible
version.

Another instance in which you may have no choice in question type or format is when you are
using a published scale. It is important that you design your survey as instructed by the scale
author to ensure reliable results.

This qualtrics help page has a list of all the accessible and non-accessible question types:
https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/survey-module/survey-tools/check-survey-
accessibility#QuestionTypeAccessibility.

Paul H. Bern, Ph.D.

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