Checkboxes Question Type

Checkbox questions allow your respondents to select multiple answers from a list.

When To Use It

Use Checkbox questions to ask your respondents to select multiple answers.

You can even use images as your answer options or customize the icons themselves.

Add an Other, Please Specify Option

On the Question tab of the question editor, add each of your answer options. Then, to add the answer option of Other, start by clicking the 'Add "Other", "NA", etc' link.  Select Other - Write In or Other - Write In (Required) if you want the Other textbox to be required.

Once the option is added, you can customize the text of the option if you wish.

Check out our Add an Other Textbox Tutorial for more info!

Additional Settings

Exclusive/None of the Above - Answer options with this setting cannot be selected with any other answer option. See our Answer Option Special Settings tutorial for more info.

Not Applicable - Answer options set to not applicable are exclusive and can be removed from Summary Reports. See our Answer Option Special Settings tutorial for more info.

All of the above - Create an "All of the above" answer option and select this setting so respondents can mark all options in one click. See our Answer Option Special Settings tutorial for more info.

Max Answers Selectable - Sets a cap on the maximum selectable options. This option is available on the Validation tab of your checkbox question.

Minimum Answers Required - Requires a minimum number of selected answers. This option is available on the Validation tab of your checkbox question.

Layout Customizations

If you are incorporating a large number of answer options for your Checkboxes question, consider displaying the answers in multiple columns or try a Dropdown Menu for usability. To add columns, edit your question and update the Number of Columns field under the Layout tab.

Survey Taking

On a desktop and most laptops, the Checkboxes question type looks like so.

When optimized for mobile devices the Checkboxes question type looks very similar but with larger targets as mobile respondents will be using their finger to select answers.

By default, survey questions show one at a time on mobile devices to prevent the need for scrolling on smaller screens. You can turn off this one-at-a-time interaction if you wish.

Reporting

Checkbox questions report as a Vertical Bar Graph, by default, with a table that includes a count and a percent for each answer option. These percentages will not add up to 100% as respondents can choose more than one option.

 See additional compatible chart types

 See what other report types are compatible

The below grid shows which of the report types Checkbox questions are compatible with. If you plan to do some specific analysis within SurveyGizmo this report compatibility chart should help you choose the right question types.

Report TypeCompatible
Standard
 
Legacy Summary 
TURF
 
Profile
 
Crosstab
 
Comparison
 (not available as source question)

Exporting

In the CSV/Excel Export Checkbox questions export a column for each answer option. If that answer option was selected its reporting value will appear in the cell. 

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