Creating Your First Survey

Welcome to SurveyMethods! This guide will walk you through creating your first survey in just a few minutes.

Getting Started

After logging in, you’ll land on your Survey Home dashboard. From here, click the Create Survey button in the top right corner.

Choose Your Creation Method

SurveyMethods offers five ways to create a survey:

1. Start from Scratch

Begin with a blank canvas and build your survey question by question. Best for unique surveys that don’t fit standard templates.

2. Build with AI

Enter a description of what you want to survey, and our AI will generate a complete survey structure for you. You can then customize and refine it.

Example prompts:

  • “Customer satisfaction survey for a software product”
  • “Employee engagement survey with 10 questions”
  • “Event feedback form for a conference”

3. Copy & Paste Questions

Paste your questions directly and SurveyMethods will automatically parse them into survey format.

4. Copy an Existing Survey

Duplicate one of your previous surveys and modify it for a new use case. Great for recurring surveys.

5. Start from a Template

Browse our template library organized by category (HR, Customer Experience, Education, etc.) and customize a pre-built survey.

Adding Questions

Once you’ve created your survey, you’ll enter the Survey Editor. Here’s how to add questions:

  1. Click Add Question or the + button
  2. Select your question type (Multiple Choice, Text Box, Rating, etc.)
  3. Enter your question text
  4. Add answer options (for applicable question types)
  5. Configure question settings (required, randomize options, etc.)

Question Types Available

  • Multiple Choice - Single selection from a list
  • Checkboxes - Multiple selections allowed
  • Star Rating - Visual rating scale
  • Dropdown - Select from a dropdown menu
  • Matrix/Rating Scale - Grid-based questions
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS) - Industry-standard loyalty metric
  • Comment Box - Open-ended text responses
  • Single Textbox - Short text input
  • File Upload - Allow respondents to upload files
  • Ranking - Drag to rank items in order

Organizing Your Survey

Pages

Break your survey into multiple pages to improve the respondent experience. Click Add Page to create sections.

Reordering

Drag and drop questions to reorder them within a page, or move them between pages.

Next Steps

Once you’ve added your questions:

  1. Preview your survey to see it as respondents will
  2. Apply a theme to match your branding
  3. Configure settings like response limits and access control
  4. Distribute via email, web link, or embedded on your website

Tips for Better Surveys

  • Keep surveys concise - aim for 5-10 minutes completion time
  • Use clear, unbiased question wording
  • Make important questions required
  • Use skip logic to show relevant questions only
  • Test your survey before sending

Need help? Contact our support team or browse more articles in the Survey Creation section.

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