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Using Images & Multimedia in online surveys 1

Ten top tips for more effective use of images, hotspots, audio and video

Using images and multimedia in online surveys gives you the opportunity to increase response rates, by making surveys more interesting to participate in. They also allow you to focus on specific items of interest or sales and marketing collateral — such as an illustration, a print or broadcast advert, an audio clip, or hotspots on a diagram.

1. Image sizes affect survey download times

Before you upload an image into Demographix, have a think about how BIG the image is, and the consequences of that. It's not just the dimensions of the image in pixels, which can break the survey's borders if too big (see 2), it's also the size of the image file (see 4), which can affect how long it takes for a survey to load. So, if you're using lots of big, uncompressed image files, your respondents will find they're waiting for the survey to load — and they might get impatient and close it down. Well-compressed images mean more responses and better data.

2. Width and depth: an image's dimensions explained

You should consider the physical dimensions of every image — how many pixels wide and deep is it? These can be specified by right-clicking on an image in a browser or in your file folder. A standard Demographix survey, designed for laptop or computer screens, is 700 pixels (700px) wide. Therefore, any image to be included in such a survey should not be wider than around 650 pixels (allowing for margin space). If it is, it will probably bust out of the borders of the survey.

3. What's the difference between image file formats?

Some image formats are better at creating smaller footprint file sizes — generally GIF (eg "imagename.gif") and PNG ("imagename.png") files will produce smaller footprints than BMP ("imagename.bmp") or JPG ("imagename.jpg") files. But GIF files can only handle 256 colours and are not good for photographs, though they are great for such things as logos and clipart, while JPG files handle unlimited colours and complex imagery much better. JPG aren't good with transparency, however, though GIF and PNG are OK. We generally recommend use of the newer PNG file format or GIF for logos, as the colours stay solid.

4. How to check an image file size

To check the file size of an image, open it in your browser and right-click on it (or right-click on the name/icon in your file folder). View the image Info or Properties, and look for the Size — this will be shown in Bytes, kilobytes (Kb) or megabytes (Mb). Anything under 100Kb (or 100,000 bytes) should be OK. Anything above that, or in the megabytes range, is likely to be uncompressed and bloated — some browsers will even struggle to display such images.

5. Options for resizing an image

Demographix offers its own in-built resizing tool, which you'll find in the Media toolset under the Image tab. Locate the image, click on the Edit option, and use the slider control to resize the image to its desired new dimensions. For most logos, gifs and jpgs, you will get a high-quality resized image. But some photos will need to be resized using a graphics editing package such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel PaintShop Pro.

Read more top tips on using hotspots, videos and audio in online surveys.