Questionnaires are a household name in research. However, different researchers adopt different methods in validating form fields in surveys and questionnaires. The reason is that form field validation ensures that the data collected is valid, meaningful, and reliable. Form field validation is so important that not validating your data may lead to inaccuracy and introduce bias into your study. 

Therefore, you can think of field validation as creating rules or limitations on the input fields in your survey or questionnaire. These rules are important to ensure that your respondents provide data in the expected format. For instance, a field asking for a respondent’s age might only accept numeric inputs within a certain range.

This means that when you enter alphabetical inputs, it will be flagged as unaccepted. In this article, we will discuss the process of setting up effective field validation in your surveys and questionnaires. 

Understanding Field Validation

Field validation is defined as a process that confirms if the data inputted into form fields provided to the participants meets the predefined rules and formats of the survey. You cannot skip this process if you want to prevent the submission of biased or incomplete data.

It is already established that an important part of the survey is data collection. Now, this collection involves interaction between the researcher and participants. For you as the researcher to successfully gather or collect information, you need to create a form that your participants can respond to. However, it is important that you create some rules or metrics to guide how the fields in the form are filled.

The first thing you must consider to have a validated field survey is collecting accurate data. This is the reason why you must be careful in data collection creation to avoid making errors that can compromise your data. 

Collecting correct or accurate data also directly impacts the reliability of your survey or questionnaire results. It forms the basis for sound conclusions and informed decision-making.

Handle Missing Survey Responses

Common Types of Validation Rules

There are a couple of types of validation rules that apply to form field validation, and we will consider them today.

1. Mandatory Fields: Mandatory fields refer to fields that must be filled before the form can be submitted. They are often marked with an asterisk (*) to indicate their necessity.
2. Data Format Validation: This involves checking if the data entered matches the expected format. For example, email addresses should include an ‘@’ symbol and a domain, while phone numbers should only contain numbers.
3. Range Validation: Range validation checks if the data falls within a specific range. For example, age fields might only accept values between 0 and 100, while income fields might have a minimum and maximum limit.
4. Custom Validation Rules: These are specific rules defined based on the unique requirements of the form. For example, a form might require a user to agree to terms and conditions before submission.

Benefits of Field Validation

1. Ensuring data accuracy and reliability: one of the benefits of validating your form field is that it reduces errors and improves the reliability of your survey. This highly benefits the parties that are in charge of making decisions because they can trust the results of the survey.
   B. Improving data integrity: field validation, also improves your data integrity by ensuring consistency and the general completeness of your data across boards. With this, the quality of your data will be maintained in all the surveys.
   C. Enhancing user experience by reducing errors and frustration: form field validation can help to enhance your user experience, and also reduce the amount of error the impute into the field. For instance, a prefilled field with alphabetical rules will prevent a user from inputting numerical data. For example, a field requesting the name of the user will reject the phone number should it be typed into it.
   D. Facilitating data analysis and interpretation: field validation, improves data analysis, and makes the interpretation of data easier and better to comprehend. When you have unbiased data, you won’t spend unnecessary time on understanding the effects or outcomes of your data results.

Understanding Survey Bias

Setting Up Field Validation in Surveys, Polls, and Questionnaires
Overview of the survey creation process in/Formplus

The first thing you need to familiarize yourself with as you create your survey is that there are versatile tools that can help you create your form, faster and simpler. One of such tools is Formplus. 

Formplus is a comprehensive online tool that facilitates the creation of surveys, polls, and questionnaires. Formplus offers over 1000 free form templates that you can select from to create your survey. Using Formplus, you don’t have to start your form creation from scratch except if you want to. 

Furthermore, you must understand the step-by-step guide to adding field validation rules of Formplus to make your form creation easier. 

Step-by-step guide to adding field validation rules

1. Identifying fields requiring validation: Begin by analyzing your form to determine which fields require validation. This ensures that data collected is accurate and meaningful.
2. Choosing appropriate validation rules: Select validation rules that align with the nature of the data. For instance, numeric fields may need numerical validation, while email addresses should adhere to a proper format.
3. Implementing validation rules using Formplus tools: Utilize the built-in tools provided by Formplus to implement validation rules seamlessly. The platform typically offers a range of options for different data types.
4. Testing validation rules: Before deploying your survey, rigorously test the validation rules. This helps identify and rectify any issues, ensuring a smooth data collection process.

Best practices for effective field validation setup

1. Keeping validation rules clear and concise: you must ensure that your validation rules are easy to understand. Clear rules prevent confusion and enhance the overall user experience.
2. Providing helpful error messages: Craft error messages that guide users towards correction. This aids in improving user satisfaction and reduces the likelihood of data entry errors.
3. Testing validation rules thoroughly before deployment: Comprehensive testing is essential. It safeguards against potential errors, guaranteeing that your validation setup functions as intended.

Advanced Field Validation Techniques

1. Conditional validation based on user input: Setting up a conditional validation technique based on user input entails setting up rules that can only trigger your form field validation based on the user’s input. This means that, if a user selects “Other” in a dropdown menu, a text box could appear for further details.
2. Using regular expressions for complex data validation: Regular expressions (regex) are powerful tools for matching patterns in text. They can be used to validate complex data like email addresses, phone numbers, and more.
3. Integrating third-party validation tools or scripts: There are numerous libraries and tools available that can simplify the process of setting up validation. Examples include jQuery Validation Plugin, Parsley.js, and more.
4. Examples and use cases: A common use case is an online registration form where each field (like email, password, etc.) needs to be validated before the user can submit the form. This ensures that all necessary information has been correctly provided.

Troubleshooting Field Validation Issues

1. Common pitfalls and mistakes: The most common mistake you can make is not providing clear error messages to indicate something is incorrect to the user or participant. Your users should be able to easily understand what went wrong and how to fix it. Another pitfall is not thoroughly testing the form to ensure all validation rules work as expected.
2. Strategies for resolving validation errors: Debugging involves checking your validation rules, testing your form with different inputs, and making necessary adjustments. It’s important to test a variety of scenarios to ensure your validation rules work correctly in all cases.
3. Seeking help from support resources or communities: Online communities like Stack Overflow, or the support channels of the third-party tools you’re using, can be invaluable resources when you’re stuck. Don’t hesitate to ask for help when you need it.

Conclusion

One important thing that determines the success of your survey as discussed above is field validation. This points to why you must handle the process with utmost care and ensure you collect accurate, relevant, and useful data. 

Furthermore, you must understand your data needs, use advanced techniques when necessary, and always test your validation rules. Remember to provide clear error messages and don’t hesitate to use third-party tools to simplify the process.