Can you do best-worst surveys in Qualtrics?

Not natively, but you can use existing question formats to achieve the same result.

How to do a Best-Worst Survey in Qualtrics

Option 1: Side by Side

This option gives the closest look and feel of a best-worst matrix, but has the negatives of repeated headers, and a non uniform screen width across the questions.

Radio buttons are very intuitive for the end user. To get the “choice text” (on the left hand column) looking nice and centred, I added in a 1 row, 4 column table with zero borders and margins, then centred each table cell by editing the html. If you want this “choice text” layout in your survey, select the choice text, pick rich text editor, then click on the source button and type in the following:

Option 2: Rank Order

The rank order question type allows you to build a list and then have the user order the list items by dragging and dropping. The screenshot below shows an example:

This is OK, but has negatives if you have a large number of items. In a large list, like the above, the user is more likely to make mistakes or not consider the ranking properly.

Option 3: Pick, Group and Rank

The third option I found was the ‘Pick, Group and Rank’ question. This looks neat, has uniform screen width, but requires the user to click and drag items across into the best and worst (or most, least) boxes. The feedback we’ve had from this type of question is that people can find it awkward to operate, in particular users on a laptop with a trackpad instead of a mouse.

Does it work on an iPad or iPhone?

Yes, pretty well actually – arguably easier to use on a touch device than on a traditional computer.

So that’s the three methods I’ve found to implement best-worst type questions into your survey. Feel free to have a play with each of the three options in our qualtrics testing area.

Found a better way, or need help with the html used in Option 1?

Hit me up with a comment below!