ABSTRACT
Introduction ............................................................................................................ 118 Survey Design Considerations: Web-Based Surveys versus Pen and Paper .......... 120
Population Distribution ..................................................................................... 121 Real-Time Reporting ......................................................................................... 121 Dynamic Responses .......................................................................................... 122 Anonymity ......................................................................................................... 123 Internet Access ..................................................................................................124 Technical Issues ................................................................................................ 125 Sample Bias ....................................................................................................... 125 Ethical Requirements ........................................................................................ 127 Summary ........................................................................................................... 128
Accessible Interface Design ................................................................................... 128 World Wide Web Accessibility .......................................................................... 130
Example: University of Auckland Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences (FMHS) Web Site .......................................................................... 133 Legal Requirements of Meeting WCAG or Section 508 Standards ............. 134
Graphical User Interface Design ....................................................................... 135 Fitts’s Law .................................................................................................... 135 Fitts’s Law and Survey Interface Design ...................................................... 136 Hick-Hyman Law ......................................................................................... 137
Web-Based Survey Design ..................................................................................... 138 Survey Software ................................................................................................ 138 Other Considerations When Designing Web-Based Surveys ............................ 138
The Graphical User Interface ....................................................................... 139 The Web-Based Survey ................................................................................ 140
Online Web-based surveys are becoming increasingly popular compared to paperand-pen-based surveys when evaluating services or products. This is largely due to reduction in costs, the ease of reaching a geographically diverse population and the ability to analyze and report up-to-the-minute results (Schmidt 1997). Web-based surveys have been used to evaluate education (Layne, DeCristoforo, and McGinty 1999), healthcare (Grant et al. 2010) and public opinion (Angus Reid Global Monitor) and have proven very effective at identifying the needs of youth to allow for improvements to transitional services, educational access (Avery et al. 2006), healthcare access and employability (Grant et al. 2010). Children as young as 8 years appear capable of using the Internet to self-report on aspects of their life with their answers paralleling those given to the same questionnaire delivered in a paper-based format (Young et al. 2009). Thus, Web-based surveys have considerable promise in the youth population particularly for studies that require multi-site data collection or that target rural or distant populations. However, many researchers lack expertise in the technical aspects of Web-based survey development and thus either use readily available survey tools that do not adhere to standards of accessibility, or employ a graphic artist to design a survey that will appeal visually to the target group. In both scenarios, the importance of survey accessibility and ease of use may not be at the forefront of the design process. Poorly designed interfaces can act as barriers to participation and systematically exclude young people with impairments such as poor visual acuity or reduced manual dexterity from involvement in an online survey. Thus, when designing Web-based surveys to capture data that are truly populationbased, one must consider not only whether all potential respondents have physical access to a computer and the Internet, but also the accessibility and ease of use of the graphical user interface (Sutter and Klein 2007).
