Tips for Selecting the Right Treatment for Your Assessment Choices
When I am working with an ion customer who wants to create an assessment or quiz, there is often a lot of focus spent on the questions that will be asked. And, of course, the questions are very important, but if we aren’t asking users to write in an answer, the choices that are presented need to make sense as well.
What is a Choice in an Assessment or Quiz?
Choices are the options presented to a user after a question. Choices can be presented in a drop-down, like the Cengage option above, or as radio buttons or styled buttons.
When a user is asked a question in an assessment or quiz, the choices presented to them helps marketers collect accurate data about that user, which can be leveraged during sales calls or for future marketing campaigns.
Choices That Make Sense
Have you ever taken a quiz or completed a form and found that none of the choices presented described you? Presenting a collection of choices that doesn’t accurately represent a user can force users to select a random option in order to move forward or abandon the experience altogether simply because the results will not be accurate.
Of course, having another choice to accurately represent everyone in your target demographic can be challenging. We find that it’s best to create choices that are specific but also flexible so that visitors feel that even an imperfect choice, is still one that is close to describing them.
Feeling confident with your choice copy? Great! Now you need to find out what treatment will work for the choices you have written.
First, Let’s Dive into Some Common Options…
Radio Buttons — Often found in forms and signals to the user that they can only select one option from the choices.
Checkboxes — A checkbox is often used when a user is able to select multiple options from the presented options.
Buttons — Button styling is often used when users have to select between a few choices such as true or false or yes or no.
Text Input — Input is often used in calculators or when an option of “other” may be necessary.
Imagery — Images can be an engaging way to show choices with iconography or even product images.
Sliders — Sliders work best when a specific value is not important to the end user or the final outcome on the result page. Sliders work well as a toggle that lets users set ranges to show items that fit within their budget or needs. Sliders are not always usable in mobile so use with caution.
When is it a Good Idea to use Iconography in Place of Text?
Icons in place of text can give assessments and quizzes are more whimsical design and modern look. But, iconography can present a challenge when trying to tell a story to your users in a clear way. Some choices may not translate to an icon and the image may end up confusing users.
Assessments can be incredibly valuable to the business and the user engaging with them but, over the years we have seen that a great assessment can suffer low engagement or even drop off if the right choice design is not selected.
At ion interactive, our team and our customers launch hundreds of assessments, quizzes, and configurators each year. Need some help getting started with your next assessment project? Let’s chat!
