I get people designing their surveys on paper and producing array-like questions with a single row, such as

About vegetables
do you eat them (never) (sometimes) (often)

Of course, such a question could be a simple radio list:

How often do you eat vegetables?
(never)
(sometimes)
(often)

If I have the Never-Often labelset, it is simpler to set up the radio list - but brings with it the hassle of getting them to rephrase the question. I was wondering about other costs associated with arrays versus radio lists. On the client side arrays need the table layout, but radio lists don't. Are there other client-side costs? And what cost differences are there on the server side and database? Are there other arguments for one versus the other?

I'd appreciate any comments.

Regards.

From a users perspective I think that the array is preferable because they only have to frame the questions in their mind once. They read the question text, they scan the labels, and then they can process the rows fairly quickly without having to re-read what they're doing each time. (Does this count as a client side cost saving.. reducing the participants brain processing power). It's good for the survey designers to try to standardise the answering methodology for the participants - it increases the consistency and reliability of the responses.

The client-side costs of the array are the table format, which is slow to render on browsers (relatively speaking).

On the server side the only cost is that more data has to be loaded, but that's a saving in the longer term. Serving up a page 6 times is more server intensive than serving up one page with 6 questions. The database has less work to do as well.

Cost wise, I'd err on the side of arrays every time.

Jason

Jason

Thanks for some useful points.
I'd err on the side of arrays every time
When would you then choose radio lists? Only when the list of choices is so long as to cause trouble in an array?

Regards.

The advantage of radio lists is just that for a single question with a range of alternative, distinct answers, I think they look a lot neater. The arrays can sometimes become a bit overwhelming. But once you have a series of questions which share the same possible answers, the arrays can help the user a bit.