My goal is to put a personality test on my website - fairly robust, 100 questions. Each question will have 4 responses in a graduated scale, A, B, C, or D, where A is the most and D the least.

After collecting the data – and this is less clear to me – I want to make charts based on the results. The way I have done this (when I was fooling around with Google docs) was to export the results to excel, and assign values to the letter answers. I assume that there is a way to do this automatically, but I’m not spreadsheet or database savvy, so I have to depend on the software to some extent.

Last week, I started looking at software to make this test, and quickly got bogged down. Most people seem to be calling this type of form a “survey,” and the number of survey sites out there are legion. Virtually all of them want you to use their software on the cloud for a monthly price. The software types here include Google Docs, Survey Monkey, etc. Most have a free option, but they all have a “choke” which limits the usability of the service.

After mulling these options for several days, I decided that I instead wanted software that would allow me to build the test on my own computer. It seems like it would be cheaper in the long run, and that I would have more control. After looking at the market, I suddenly remembered that Coffeecup – I’ve been happily using VSD for years - had something called a Web Form Builder. Could this be the answer?

It seems so. I want to be able to brand the test with my own logo, and I can obviously do that in Web Form Builder. WFB can also handle the graphics of making the test. But I am less certain about integration with analytics on the back end. And I have no experience with MySQL, so I’m not even sure that it applies in this case.

Further, and it may be a little too advanced to be considering: for people who only want to take part of the test, and resume it later to finish – is this even possible?

Just looking for advice on moving in a good direction. Thanks for any comments!

Jeff

Hi Jeff,
This should get the juices flowing.
Sample forms

HI Jef, WFB would collect the response but it would require a healthy set of scripts to display the charts you may require. I see two options.
1 use WFB and save the results to a csv file which you can download put into Open Office or Excel and create the charts there.
2. Sus out Limesurvey It is a free program and could do what you want. It will still need a lot of fine tuning but there is a forum involved

Hi Eric,

I had already viewed your survey page, thank you. I appreciate you trying to make a complex procedure easier to digest.

I've actually read quite a few posts here in the forums before posting. Unless I hear otherwise, it looks like I will need to either 1) start serious studying, or 2) back off of my ambitions to some degree.

Jeff

Hi Prism,

Thanks for the response.

Your option one - save to csv and open in excel - is the one I used in Google Docs. Not very elegant, but is does work. I appreciate your verification that I can also do this with WFB.

As for Lime Survey, I spent several days looking at it. The forum there was very much over my head. In the end, I felt that it wouldn't be a good fit. For one, the control panel is very non-intuitive (to me). There were also some other problems with it that escape me at the moment.

I was also surprised the Lime Survey had very few youtube tutorial videos (Google Docs had dozens). This is also the case with WFB. Where are current detailed videos of WFB software being used to construct a survey? I wonder why Coffeecup does not provide this resource.

Or, am I missing something?

Jeff

Creating videos is a huge strain on resources. As soon as we get one made, we release an update and then all our hard work is completely out of date.

Years ago we tried very hard to keep up with them but after monitoring the stats, not enough people viewed them to justify the time it took to create them. For that reason, we have found that our Quick Start Guide along with our Knowledge base articles work extremely well. Anything not covered there can typically be handled in the forums, support or just by using the software.

Hi Scott,

By Quick Start Guide, do you mean the tutorial that is built into the program? If you don't respond, I will assume that "yes" is the answer.

I agree that Coffeecup has good written tutorials. But for some people, it is more effective to have a different way to input knowledge. That is actually a major point in the personality test that I want to build. For example, I learned how to make a survey in Google docs without reading anything. I just watched a couple of video tutorials.

However, you are successful, and I sure that you gave your decision a lot of thought. And I certainly learned VSD without any video anything. But WFB seems like a different animal.

Thanks for the explanation,

Jeff

All Support Articles is your friend (Top menu, mouse over Support and choose All Support Articles)
You'll find all kinds of Knowledge Base articles that Scott is referring to for lots of things. Wish that was more widely known

Thanks Jo Ann,

I had already read many of the articles.

I suspect that clear answers, if they come, will mean jumping into the software.

One last question.

I assume that the trial period is 30 days. Is anything disabled in the trial program? I couldn't find any reference to it on the main WFB page.

Jeff

I'm pretty sure it's 100% active for the trial period on that program. Most all of the trial versions have full capabilities until the trial is over. Give it a whirl and see how it goes and let us know if you need any help on it