HTML Elements to Enhance Your Survey

Using HTML Elements to Enhance Your Surveys

(This section gives a brief overview of using HTML elements within SSI Web. More HTML help is included in the HTML Cheat-Sheet .)

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the language of the Web. You don't need to know any HTML code to use this software. But users who know (or are willing to learn) a few simple HTML tricks can gain some nice benefits.

You can include HTML instructions to:

Add styles to specific words or letters (like bold, italics, or underlining)

Change font sizes of specific words or letters

Display graphic images

Nearly any HTML instruction can be included in your survey. You simply type HTML elements into the text entry fields in the SSI Web interface.

Notes: Be careful with the HTML elements you add within your surveys! You should only include HTML instructions that belong between the <BODY> </BODY> tags of the HTML script. It would be a mistake to use <HTML> or <FORM> tags in the HTML code you add to your questionnaires, as it will likely interfere with the <HTML> and <FORM> section instructions that our software automatically generates when it runs on the server. Also, you probably wouldn't want to add a hyperlink that would send respondents out of the survey, turn off the forms mode using </FORM>, create a submit button or additional input field that would interfere with the survey progress.

When using the Free Format question type, you will probably need to know more than just the "basics" of HTML. The Free Format question type turns all of the question-writing responsibility over to you, including specifying the <INPUT> tags. We have some very simple examples documented in the Free Format section.

Any of a number of books and websites can instruct the interested user on HTML basics. Here is a partial list of HTML elements that can be useful (and safe to use) in your Internet surveys:

Adding Styles

Italics

to turn on:

<I>

to turn off:

</I>

Type:

Please be <I>very</I> careful!

to create: Please be very careful!

Bold

to turn on:

<B>

to turn off:

</B>

Underline

to turn on:

<U>

to turn off:

</U>

Adding Hard Returns

Internet browsers typically wrap your text if it doesn't fit into the allotted space. Sometimes you may want to control where your phrases break. You can insert hard returns using the <BR> element.

Type:

Please be <BR>very careful!

to create:

Please be

very careful!

Type:

<P>

to create:

hard return plus blank line

Inserting Horizontal Lines

Type:

<HR>

to create:

Horizontal line spanning the current text cell, or spanning the current line.