Engaging Respondents with Engaging Questionnaires

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Written by: Jason Jacobson

We are living in an increasingly visual world in which we consume increasingly more information through pictures and videos.


We are asked to quickly point at something, like something, share something, and post something with a click or a push of a button or a swipe. As the world is evolving, marketing research questionnaires have not.

In an effort to develop questions that mirror how today’s visual realities, Koski Research ran several experiments as part of our proprietary Engagement IQ survey.

For our latest wave, we ran parallel versions of a “standard” survey and one that was more “gamified” and visual. Both versions had a Nationally Representative sample of 1,000 online respondents.

Bottom line, we found our more game-oriented survey to be very comparable to the traditional survey in terms of:

  • The length of interview
  • Response rate
  • Respondents’ perceptions of the survey (i.e., whether they found it engaging, would take again, etc.).

    • And, we found that there was no effect on results based on type of device used, including desktop, mobile, tablet.

    We made two primary comparisons:


    1. We compared a 5-point rating question to a “Tinder” binary, gamified question

    We tested a “Tinder” survey question and found that a “heart” generally equated to the positive end of a 5-point scale:

  • The heart tended to match a 3 to 5 rating (within 5 to 10 percentage points), while the X was very comparable to a 1-2 rating

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    2. We compared an NPS-like 0-10 scale to a thumbs up/thumbs down of Facebook “likes”

    We tested a Facebook-like thumbs up /thumbs down question and found similar results:

  • The thumbs up corresponded well with the positive end of a 0 to 10 scale (5 to 10 rating), while the thumbs down was in line with the 0 to 4 rating.

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    What should you use?


    While scale granularity is important in situations when analytical precision matters, there are many cases when a visual, binary question can be a better option. Gamified questions and responses are:

    a) well suited for situations when short, visual survey questions will engage respondents in the topic

    b) easy to answer on mobile devices

    c) get to people’s immediate “gut” (or heart) reaction to a brand or product (when that is what you need to make decisions.)