As a new medium for questionnaire delivery, the Internet has the potential to revolutionize the survey process. Online (Web-based) questionnaires provide several advantages over traditional survey methods in terms of cost, speed, appearance, flexibility, functionality, and usability [Bandilla et al. 2003; Dillman 2000; Kwak & Radler 2002]. Online-questionnaires can provide many capabilities not found in traditional paper-based questionnaires: they can include pop-up instructions and error messages; they can incorporate links; and it is possible to encode difficult skip patterns making such patterns virtually invisible to respondents. Despite this, and the emergence of numerous tools to support online-questionnaire creation, current electronic survey design typically replicates the look-and-feel of pap- based questionnaires, thus failing to harness the full power of the electronic survey medium. A recent environmental scan of online-questionnaire design tools found that little, if any, support is incorporated within these tools to guide questionnaire design according to best-practice [Lumsden & Morgan 2005]. This paper briefly introduces a comprehensive set of guidelines for the design of online-questionnaires. It then focuses on an informal observational study that has been conducted as an initial assessment of the value of the set of guidelines as a practical reference guide during online-questionnaire design. 2 Background Online-questionnaires are often criticized in terms of their vulnerability to the four standard survey error types: namely, coverage, non-response, sampling, and measurement errors.
This volume contains the full papers presented at HCI 2005, the 19th Annual Conference of the British HCI Group, a specialist group of the BCS. The conference has become the premiere annual conference on human-computer interaction in Europe, attracting a global audience.
People and Computers XIX includes leading edge discussions outlining the latest research results and novel systems from the foremost research and development groups and laboratories throughout the world. In keeping with our theme, The Bigger Picture, this year our authors collectively construct a broad canvas, though we can focus on HCI at three distinct levels:
The Human Scale exploring the relationships between individuals mediated by tangible interfaces, ways of capturing their requirements and eliciting their needs, and considering the user in their immediate, local situations
The Cultural Context zooming out to gain a perspective on HCIs place in the world and its relationship with external communities across different countries and cultures, seeing patterns in social networks both within the HCI community and with other stakeholders
Interactivity at the Interface here we zoom back in to the detailed level, the traditional territory of HCI, with analysis of interface components and human senses, and the fit between them.
We conclude with the call to action by our closing keynote, Professor Alistair Sutcliffe, who makes the connections to enable the HCI community to meet grand challenges in computer science.
The papers presented in this volume include contributions from leading figures in both the research and business sectors.
