Surveys & Messages

In a Survey, a Section is a page break. If you want to limit questions to a certain number per page, for example, organize them in separate Sections.

A note about skip patterns: If your Question 2 is tailored on someone's answer to Question 1, MTS automatically places a page break between the two. (It needs the answer to Q1 before it knows whether to display Q2.)

In a Message, a Section can correspond to an area on a web page if your design specifies it. For example, if you have a sidebar on your web page, you may have a section in your MTS with a name of Sidebar, and MTS would know to insert the corresponding tailored text into the sidebar on the page.

Blocks help you:

• Combine items with similar logic. Say you have different Headings, Text rows, and Graphics for people above or below a certain score. A Block lets you cluster the elements for each group of people and add logic to one element (the Block) instead of every element (the Headings, the Text rows, and the Graphics). 

• Minimize repetitive logic. If you have complex logic, a Block can help you bring repeating logic out into a more streamlined flow.

In a Message, a Text element is a basic building block of your tailored messages. 

In a Survey, you'll use a Text element for things like:

• • Introductory text 

  • Instructions

  • The stem of a matrix question

A Heading element styles your headings according to the style sheets your designer set up. Consult your designer or style guide for when to give your Heading an HTML Tag of h1, h2, h3, and so on.

A Select element tells MTS to choose a specified number of objects held within it for tailoring. For example, if you write 10 tailored rows of text but you only want people to see three that apply (so they're not overwhelmed), you can set a limit of 3.

• • Limit: Set the number of items you want MTS to display for the user.

  • Order: MTS can select your rows randomly or in the order you list them in your document (sequential). Note: if you have a "default" row (with no logic for people who may not have answered the question), you probably want to stick with sequential order so the untailored (default) row only shows up when people didn't answer the question.

Create bulleted and numbered lists:

First add a List element; this serves as the container that holds your list items.

• • • Limit: Set the number of items you want MTS to display for the user. The default is no limit.

    • Order: Decide whether you want MTS to display the items randomly or in the order in which you wrote them (sequential).

    • List type: Specify whether you want the items to be bulleted or numbered.

Next, click on the 3-dot menu on the List element, and choose Add (Child) to add as many List item elements as you like, indented under your List element.

Comments are not visible to participants; they're only visible to other MTS users.

Upload media from your computer or link to media stored online. MTS accepts 3 types of media:

• Graphics

• Video

• Audio

Use the 3-dot menu on the media element to set the Width and Height of your media in pixels. 

A Group element clusters questions that you want to be together on the same line — like first name and last name, for example.

A matrix of questions includes a Matrix element with the following pieces indented underneath: 

• a Text element with a common introductory sentence (e.g., "How much do you agree or disagree with the following?")

• Question elements that make up the matrix

• a shared value set (e.g., a 5-point Likert scale from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree")

A Question element is the basic building block in a survey. 

Normally, a survey document will display your response options (values) as you have entered them in the Dictionary. Sometimes, however, you might want to customize your response wording, change the order of your response options, or tailor who can see a response option. 

To do so:

• • Add a Response element indented under your Question element. 

  • Add the value to which your custom response applies

  • Add the logic for who should see it (if applicable)

  • Add the text you want displayed for that value

Here's how to set up questions that include an option "Other, please specify."

• First, make sure you have two characteristics in your Dictionary, one for the main question and one for the "other" text box (for example: Motivation and MotivationFillIn).

• In your survey, add an Other element indented under your Question. 

  • Specify your characteristic name (e.g., MotivationFillIn). 

  • In the Value field, add the name of the value that should have a text box next to it (e.g., Motivation=="Other").

A Goto element will let you skip a user to a later Section, depending on how they answered a question. Some rules apply: 

• • You can only skip people to Sections (not to elements within a Section).

  • The Section to which you're skipping people needs to have a name (in the HTML ID field).

  • In your Goto element, you’ll enter this HTML ID into the Destination field and add the logic for the skip pattern.