Guided Story is the base voice-first StorySync AI Qual format. The respondent speaks their answer instead of typing it, and the platform transcribes and structures the response for analysis. It's wizard-driven — adding one opens a dedicated setup flow instead of the plain question card.
What respondents see#
A greeting screen (one or more instruction slides) introduces the exercise, then the respondent sees a prompt with a large microphone button. Tapping it starts recording; a live transcript appears as they talk, and they can re-record before continuing. One or more sub-questions can follow in the same flow, each optionally paired with a stimulus image or video. If voice isn't mandatory, respondents can be offered a choice between answering by voice or typing.
When to use it#
- Open-ended feedback where a spoken answer feels more natural than a typed one.
- Customer research, concept reactions, or anywhere you'd otherwise reach for a long-text question.
- Studies that want richer, more spontaneous narrative than a text box typically produces.
Configuring it in the builder#
Drag Guided Story from the StorySync AI Qual group onto your canvas — a configuration wizard opens with three steps: Questions, Display Settings, and Text for Alerts.
- Questions — write the greeting screen(s), optionally show an image or video with the question, write the initial instructions shown before the first sub-question, add one or more Sub-Questions, and optionally list Guardrails (topics the AI should avoid steering toward).
- Display Settings — control voice/media behavior for this question.
- Text for Alerts — every button label and error/retry message respondents can see (14 fields covering navigation, recording states, and generic errors), plus four dedicated rich-text messages for microphone-permission failures (optional vs. mandatory voice, first denial vs. repeat denial).
Settings reference#
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Show Instruction Screen(s) | Whether the greeting pop-ups appear before the question | On |
| Show Image/Video in Question | Reveals the media fields below for a stimulus image or video at the top of the question | Off |
| Media Type | Image or video, once media is enabled | Image |
| Number of Images to Show | 1–4 images shown as a grid/collage (image mode only) | 1 |
| Question Image URL (1–4) | Image URL(s) for the stimulus; URLs 2–4 appear as you raise the image count | — |
| Question Video URL | Video URL for the stimulus (video mode only) | — |
| Initial Instructions | Text shown before the first sub-question to set context; supports piped text | Seeded example prompt |
| Voice Mandatory | Voice input required, no text fallback | Off |
| Honor voice-permission globals | Follow the survey-level voice/mic-permission setting instead of this question's own toggle, and auto-skip if voice turns out unavailable | On (recommended) |
| Default to Voice | Voice is the default input method | On |
| Enable Transcription | Show a live transcript as the respondent speaks | On |
| Enable Voice Attribute Detection | Detect speaker gender/age range/language/accent/human-vs-AI from the recording | On |
| Tap to Zoom Image | Let respondents tap the concept image to zoom in | Off |
| Enable Image Scrolling | Let respondents scroll through multiple images | Off |
| Enable Auto Probing | Let the AI generate its own follow-up questions from the answer | Off |
| Use Whole Conversation | Feed the entire prior conversation into AI-generated probes | Off |
| Request Voice or Text Preference | Ask respondents up front whether they'd rather answer by voice or by typing (only shown when voice isn't mandatory) | Off |
| Concept Image Height | Height of the stimulus image as % of screen | 50% (range 30–70) |
| Question Font Size | Font size for question/instruction text | 17px (range 10–40) |
| Require video playback before questions | Blocks the mic and "View first question" controls until the concept video finishes (video mode only) | On |
| Maximum Recording Duration | Cap on voice recording length | 5 minutes (range 3–10) |
| Select Language | Speech-recognition language | English (also Spanish, French, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Arabic) |
| Select Text Direction | LTR or RTL layout | Left to Right |
| Button Color | Primary action-button color | #34ac8b |
| Is Loaded from Iframe | Marks the question as embedded in an iframe inside an external survey — a technical/integration setting, not something you toggle for a normal study | Off |
Logic support#
Guided Story stores an open-ended (voice/transcript) response, so condition operators are limited to Answered / Not answered. See Logic, Flow & Conditions for the full operator tables and where to attach display/skip rules.
Good to know#
- Honor voice-permission globals overrides this question's own Voice Mandatory / Default to Voice toggles with the survey-level setting, and will auto-skip the question if voice ends up unavailable for that respondent — leave it on unless you have a specific reason to override per question.
- If a respondent's device can't support voice recording, the Mandatory/Optional error messages in Text for Alerts determine whether they're blocked entirely or dropped back to a text fallback.
Related guides#
- Question Types — overview and when-to-use table
- StorySync AI Qual — all 9 StorySync formats
- Logic, Flow & Conditions — operators and condition builder
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