Digital forms, questionnaires, surveys and opinion polls

In addition to the topics of e-voting, broader pertinent topics include: group decision making, digital forms, questionnaires, their construction, surveys, related data collection and opinion polls. Some technological topics include the design of forms, questionnaires, surveys and opinion polls, existing and new user interface components or widgets, and the collection, assurance, aggregation, analysis and visualization of more complex data.

That which was possible with paper can be far surpassed with digital technology and there exist opportunities in the advancement of technologies in the aforementioned areas including in ways which can facilitate new website features, new websites and new web services. We can advance technologies while addressing and overcoming concerns; for instance, those indicated in Social Influence Bias: A Randomized Experiment by Lev Muchnik, Sinan Aral and Sean J. Taylor.

With regard to both form and function of Web content resembling digital forms, questionnaires, surveys and opinion polls, in terms of comparing hypotheses and approaches, metrics can include that: (a) on some websites, that which the users are trying to do is to participate in rational group decision making processes, (b) on some websites, that which the users are trying to do is to express their opinions for aggregations which provide some benefit or utility.

Onto the topics of user interface elements or widgets, a list of user interface widgets is available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI_widget#List_of_common_generic_widgets. New user interface concepts can expand what is possible in terms of the form and function of forms, questionnaires, surveys and opinion polls in ways pertinent to user experiences and to the collection, assurance, aggregation, analysis and visualization of more complex data.

An example of a new user interface or widget design concept is one with which users can drag and drop a number of items from one area of items, possibly randomized, into a sorted list area; that is, selecting 1 to n₁ items from n₂ items and sorting them. Example scenarios for such a widget include selecting items and prioritizing lists of items from larger numbers of policy topics or city budget topics. There may exist a larger number of new ideas for components and each new component or widget can facilitate an entire category of form, questionnaire, survey and opinion poll question.

In addition to lists of questions, directed acyclic graphs of questions or of groups of questions are possible and premises of sequences of questionnaire questions are additionally applicable to dynamic routes through questions which can vary based upon user input. Possible are forms or questionnaires with answer-dependent follow-up questions or sections of such questions in content and, furthermore, dynamic questionnaires can calculate topics and subtopics relevant to participants. In addition to intra-form navigation topics, there are inter-form navigation topics, for instance hyperlinks presented after the completion of forms, questionnaires, surveys and opinion polls with topics including the indexing, search and retrieval of such content and the data utilized in generating such content.