Choosing the right question type affects both the respondent experience and the quality of the data you collect.
In Porsline, different question types are designed for different kinds of answers—from contact details and open-ended feedback to ratings, rankings, files, quiz responses, and payments.
This guide gives you an overview of the available question types in Porsline and helps you decide when to use each one.
Porsline question types and when to use them
| Question type | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Welcome Page | Use it before the questions begin to introduce the survey, explain its purpose, provide instructions, or tell respondents what to expect before they start. |
| Short Text | Use it to collect short answers such as a name, job title, reference code, phone number, national ID, or other brief information. When the answer needs to follow a specific format, choose the appropriate response pattern or configure a custom pattern where needed. |
| Long Text | Use it when respondents need space to provide detailed feedback, explanations, suggestions, complaints, or other open-ended responses. |
| Multiple Choice | Use it when respondents need to choose from a predefined list of options. Depending on the question settings, you can allow one or more selections. |
| Picture Choice | Use it when respondents need to choose between visual options, such as products, designs, colours, packaging concepts, or other image-based alternatives. |
| Question Group | Use it to organise related questions into a section and control how questions within that group are presented, such as displaying them together on one page or randomising their order when the relevant settings are enabled. |
| Dropdown | Use it for longer lists of predefined options, such as cities, countries, branches, departments, or categories, especially when displaying every option at once would make the form unnecessarily long. |
| Number | Use it to collect quantitative values that you may want to compare, calculate, or analyse, such as age, quantity, number of employees, hours, weight, or monetary values. |
| Opinion Scale | Use it when respondents need to express an opinion or level of satisfaction on a defined numeric scale, such as 1–5 or 1–10. |
| Rating | Use it when respondents need to give a score to a product, service, experience, performance, or other item using the rating scale configured in the question. |
| Matrix | Use it when respondents need to evaluate several items using the same set of answer options in a table, such as rating service speed, quality, price, and support. |
| Use it when you need to collect the respondent's email address for registration, follow-up, communication, or other workflows that require an email address. | |
| Link / Website | Use it when respondents need to submit a website address, portfolio link, project page, social profile, or another URL. |
| Ranking | Use it when the order itself matters and respondents need to rank options from highest to lowest priority, importance, or preference. |
| Statement | Use it to display instructions, context, notes, images, or other information inside the survey without collecting an answer. |
| File Upload | Use it when respondents need to upload files such as documents, images, audio files, signatures, or other supported attachments. It is useful for job applications, registrations, document collection, and forms that require supporting files. |
| Payment Gateway Question | Use it when your form needs to collect an online payment, such as for paid registration, an order, a booking, or another payment-based workflow. |
| End Page | Use it to control what respondents see after submitting their answers, such as a confirmation message, next-step instructions, a result, or another supported post-submission action. |
How to choose the right question type
Start with the type of data you need rather than the way you want the question to look.
For example:
- Use Number when you need a quantitative value that you may want to compare or analyse.
- Use Long Text when respondents need to explain something in detail.
- Use Dropdown when respondents need to choose from a long predefined list.
- Use Matrix when several items need to be evaluated using the same answer options.
- Use Ranking when the order of the options is itself important.
- Use File Upload when the respondent needs to provide a document or another supported file.
Matching the question type to the nature of the answer makes the survey easier to complete and gives you cleaner, more useful data.
Why question type selection matters
The question type affects three important parts of the survey:
- Respondent experience: The right format makes it clearer what kind of answer is expected and can make the survey easier to complete.
- Data quality: Structured question types can reduce inconsistent or difficult-to-use responses.
- Result analysis: Numeric values and predefined options are generally easier to compare and analyse, while open-text responses are better suited to detailed qualitative feedback.
Choose each question type according to the information you need from that question rather than using the same format throughout the survey.
Explore the question type you need
Once you've identified the type of answer you want to collect, open the dedicated guide for that question type to learn about its settings and practical uses in Porsline.
You can also review the Creating and Adding Questions guide to learn how to add questions to your survey and explore the other elements available in the survey editor.
If you run into an issue while choosing or configuring a question type, contact us at [email protected].