Intuify Survey Builder offers a set of native question types plus custom plugin interfaces and the StorySync AI Qual formats for voice-first research. Use this page to pick the right type for your study, then open the focused guide for setup details.
When to use which type#
| Goal | Question types | Deep dive |
|---|---|---|
| One answer from a list | Multiple Choice set to Single Select | Choice questions |
| One or more answers from a very long list | Multiple Choice with Display Type set to Searchable Dropdown | Choice questions |
| Several answers from a list | Multiple Choice set to Multiple Select | Choice questions |
| Brief open text | Text Entry set to Short | Text & contact |
| A number, amount or percentage typed in a box | Text Entry with Answer Type set to Numeric Entry | Text & contact |
| Long comments or explanations | Text Entry set to Long | Text & contact |
| Satisfaction or agreement on a scale | Rating | Scale questions |
| Loyalty / recommend score | NPS | Scale questions |
| Numeric value on a range | Slider | Scale questions |
| Prioritize or order options | Basic Rank, Tap & Drag Rank, Thumbnail Rank | Rank questions |
| Multi-item agreement grid | Standard Matrix | Grid & allocation |
| Allocate 100% or a fixed total | Distribution | Grid & allocation |
| Allocate points, dollars or counts | Constant Sum | Grid & allocation |
| Several related numbers on one screen | Multi Numeric | Grid & allocation |
| Contact or validated single fields | Email, Phone, Zip Code, Postal Code | Text & contact |
| Calendar or clock input | Date & Time, Time (each with a Display style of Standard or Graphical) | Date, upload & forms |
| Attachments or camera capture | File Upload | Date, upload & forms |
| Multiple sub-fields on one page | Form Fields | Date, upload & forms |
| Instructions or images (no response) | Instructions | Display blocks & plugins |
| Set a global variable mid-section | Create / Edit Global Variables | Display blocks & plugins |
| Check variable values while building | Display Global Variables | Display blocks & plugins |
| Best/worst trade-off prioritization | MaxDiff | MaxDiff |
| Choice-based trade-off between product concepts | Conjoint | Conjoint |
| Mobile-first taps, swipes, and drag interactions | Custom interface plugins | Custom interfaces |
| Voice, video, or AI-moderated interviews | StorySync AI Qual formats | StorySync AI Qual |
| Shopping a store shelf: buy one product (and a quantity) per shelf | Shelf Choice | Shelf Choice |
| Which products people buy from a store shelf | Simplified Shelf Choice | Simplified Shelf Choice |
| Shopping an online product list: buy one product (a quantity, and optionally a repeat order) per screen, or buy nothing | Online Choice | Van Westendorp |
| Online Choice | ||
| The price at which people would buy, and stock up on, each product | Falling Price | Custom interfaces |
| The range of prices people accept for one product (too cheap, good value, getting expensive, too expensive) | Van Westendorp | Van Westendorp |
For a full capability inventory (status, scale, and plugin counts), see the Platform Feature List.
Where the types live in the palette#
The palette groups every question type into seven categories, in this order:
| Category | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Standard | The everyday types: Multiple Choice, Text Entry, Rating, Slider and the instruction blocks |
| Specialized | Constant Sum, NPS, Date & Time, Zip Code, File Upload and the global variable blocks |
| Rank | Basic Rank, Tap & Drag Rank, Thumbnail Rank |
| Matrix | Standard Matrix and the single-grid interfaces built on it |
| Multi-Matrix | The interfaces that carry a respondent through several grids in one question |
| Choice Modeling | MaxDiff and Conjoint |
| StorySync AI Qual | The voice-first and recorded-answer formats |
Only Standard is expanded when you open the palette. The other six are collapsed, so click a category heading to see what is inside it. For the full list of types in each category, see Survey Builder Overview.
Question type guides#
| Guide | What's inside |
|---|---|
| Choice questions | Multiple Choice in its Single Select and Multiple Select variants, and the Display Type setting |
| Scale questions | Rating, NPS, Slider |
| Grid & allocation questions | Standard Matrix, Distribution, Constant Sum, Multi Numeric |
| Text & contact questions | Text Entry (Short and Long), Email, Phone, Zip Code, Postal Code |
| Date, upload & form fields | Date & Time and Time (with the Display style setting), File Upload, Form Fields |
| Display blocks & plugins | Instructions, the global variable blocks, custom plugin interfaces, StorySync AI Qual |
| Custom interfaces | 22 mobile-first tap, swipe, drag, and dial plugin formats |
| StorySync AI Qual | Guided Story, Mini IDI, Pantry Checker, Tap & Talk, Slide & Speak |
| MaxDiff | Best/worst screens, DOE designs, Follow Up Question |
| Conjoint | Attributes & levels, DOE workflow, stimulus layouts, exports |
| Shelf Choice | Fixed product, price and promotion attributes, shelf settings, quantity and price export |
| Simplified Shelf Choice | Virtual store shelf: products, prices and pack shots, Excel paste, cart settings, stored answers |
| Online Choice | Fixed product, price, promotion, shipping, repeat, rating and sponsorship attributes, unit label and maximum quantity, quantity, repeat and price export |
The three rank types have no separate guide. They are documented on this page, under Rank questions.
Adding and configuring questions#
- Drag a question type from the palette onto your canvas, or select the section you want it in and click the type in the palette. If no section is selected you get the message "Please select a section to add the question to".
- Select the question to open its settings in the properties panel.
- Edit the title, description and answer options as needed.
Numeric settings fields#
Every numeric box in the properties panel carries a pair of stepper buttons, labelled Decrease and Increase. They move the value one step at a time and stop at the field's own minimum and maximum, so they are the quickest way to find a legal value when you do not know the range. Typing into the box does the same job.
Formatting answer text#
Click an answer option's text to edit it. The plain field turns into a small rich text editor with its own toolbar, so you can make an option bold or italic, add a link or a list, and pipe an earlier answer into it. Click away to finish.
Adding images to answers#
Each answer option and each rank item has an Insert Graphic button. It opens an image dialog where you can upload a file, pick something from your image library, choose Pipe in image to use an image an earlier answer carried, or fill in OR Enter URL Manually: with a direct image address. A thumbnail then sits beside the option, with Preview image to see it full size and Remove to take it off again. Close the full-size view with its X, by clicking anywhere outside the image, or with Escape.
Question types that always get their own page#
Some interactive types take over the whole screen with their own buttons, and only work when nothing else shares their page. These always start a new page, and the question after them starts another one, even when you have not added a page break:
- Matrix: Carousel Matrix, Transposed Matrix, Funnel, Swipe Matrix, Brand Association, Time Based Rating, Fast Agreement Matrix, Fast Bipolar Agreement, Dial Gauge Grid, Skin In The Game Rating Matrix, Statement Agreements
- Multi-Matrix: Jobs To Be Done Multi-Tap, Jobs To Be Done Sequential Select, Statement Multi-Tap Agreement, Icon Rating Multi-Matrix, Emoji Multi-Tap
- Rank: Tap & Drag Rank, Thumbnail Rank (basic Rank can share a page)
- Choice Modeling: MaxDiff, Conjoint, Shelf Choice, Online Choice, Falling Price (Simplified Shelf Choice can share a page)
- StorySync / AI Qual: every Guided Story format, AI-Moderated Interview, Pantry Checker, Tap & Talk and Slide & Speak
Your page breaks are not changed: the extra pages appear only when the survey is shown, the same way in the survey link, Preview and survey testing. The question's Settings tab says "This question type always shows on its own page." Every other question type keeps sharing a page until the next page break.
Rank questions#
Rank questions ask respondents to put items in order rather than pick one. All three live in the Rank category of the palette, and all three store the same thing: the items in the order the respondent put them, first place first. That means one set of rank operators in the condition builder, one carry-forward behaviour and one shape in your exported data, whichever of the three you choose. Pick between them on how the respondent should do the ordering.
| Type | The respondent sees | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Rank | Every item in one vertical list, each with its position number and a drag handle. They drag rows up and down until the order is right. | Short text lists on desktop, where seeing the whole order at once is the point. |
| Tap & Drag Rank | Items as a grid of cards. They tap a card to rank it, tap it again to un-rank it, and drag to re-order what they have ranked. | Mobile, and studies where a respondent should rank only some of the items. |
| Thumbnail Rank | Two panels: a scrolling panel of thumbnails, and a set of numbered boxes beside it. They tap or drag a thumbnail into a box. | Image-led ranking, where each item needs to be large enough to study. |
What they share#
- Items are authored the same way for all three, under Ranking Items in the properties panel. Add item adds another, and each item can carry an image as well as text.
- Ordering the items is the answer, so the rank operators in the condition builder work the same against all three. See Logic, Flow & Conditions.
- The Validation tab offers Choice Auto-Behavior with Auto-answer if only one item. Turn it on and, when carry forward or display logic leaves a respondent with one item to rank, that item is recorded in first place and the question is skipped. It is off unless you turn it on.
Basic Rank#
Basic Rank is the only one of the three with no separate interface settings. Its extra control is Ranking Threshold Labels in the properties panel: Best Label and Worst Label print a short caption above and below the list, so respondents know which end is which. Leave them empty and no captions appear.
Two things to know before you use it. Every item is on screen and already in an order, so a respondent who changes nothing still submits the order you listed the items in. And because of that, Basic Rank has no Require Answer toggle and no Selection Limits: there is nothing for a respondent to leave blank, and they cannot rank fewer items than you listed.
Tap & Drag Rank#
Tap & Drag Rank gets a Settings tab of its own:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Card Columns | How many cards sit side by side, set separately for Mobile and Desktop. |
| Answers Display | Whether a card shows text, image or both. |
| Show Instructions in Popup | Shows the question text in a popup before ranking, on mobile, desktop, both or neither. |
| Instruction Text Length | How many characters of the on-page instruction show before it is truncated. The full text stays available on hover. |
| Fit to Screen | Sizes the cards to fill the height of the screen. |
| Text Alignment / Vertical Alignment | Where the text sits inside a card. |
| Card Padding | Inner padding of each card, in pixels. |
| Auto Advance | Moves to the next question as soon as the maximum number of items has been ranked. |
| Re-rank Prompt | On the first press of Next, asks the respondent to take another look at their order before moving on. |
How many items a respondent must and may rank is set in the Validation tab, under Selection Limits: Minimum Selections and Maximum Selections. Because those limits decide whether an answer is mandatory, Tap & Drag Rank has no separate Require Answer toggle.
The Messages tab holds Button & Message Text for this interface, so you can reword the Next button, the Instructions button, the re-rank prompt and the two validation messages, and translate them with the rest of the survey.
Thumbnail Rank#
Thumbnail Rank has the same kind of Settings tab, with a few differences that follow from the two-panel layout:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Column Number | How many thumbnails sit side by side, set separately for Mobile and Desktop. |
| Answers Display | Whether a thumbnail shows text, image or both. |
| Fit to Screen | Sizes the panels to fill the screen. The panel recommends leaving this off for Thumbnail Rank. |
| Require Scroll | Respondents must scroll through every item before Next becomes available. |
| Text Alignment / Vertical Alignment | Where the text sits inside a thumbnail. |
The number of rank boxes on the right is not a setting of its own. It follows Maximum Selections in the Validation tab, so set the limits first and the boxes match. Minimum Selections in the same place decides how many boxes must be filled before a respondent can move on, which is why there is no Require Answer toggle here either.
There is also no Show Instructions in Popup control. Thumbnail Rank shows no question text on the page, so the popup always fires and it is the only place the respondent reads the question. Write the question text with that in mind.
Answering a question for the respondent#
Any question can answer itself instead of being asked. There are two separate controls, both in the Logic tab of the properties panel.
Auto-Answer Question Rules hides the question when your conditions match and records an answer for it, then carries on to the next question. Click Add to build a rule. Use it to record a screening outcome or a derived segment without putting the question in front of the respondent.
Default auto-answer when question is not displayed is a switch further up the same tab. Turn it on and pick the value the question should store whenever display logic keeps it off the screen, so a question that was never shown still has an answer in your data. For a few question types the switch is there but not yet usable, and the panel says so: "Auto-answer defaults for this question type are coming soon."
See Logic, Flow & Conditions for the condition builder itself.
Completion message#
When respondents finish your survey, they see a closing screen. Its wording is the Thank You Message under Completion Message in the survey's Settings, and it is a rich text field, so you can add bold text, links, lists or an image rather than a single plain line. Leave it empty and respondents see "Thank you for completing this survey!".
Related guides#
- Logic, Flow & Conditions for display logic, skip logic and the operators each type offers
- Platform Feature List for the full capability inventory
- Exporting a Survey for downloading a survey's definition
- Survey Builder Overview for the canvas, palette and properties panel
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