SurveyMonkey

Making Survey Questions Required

You can make any question in your survey required so that survey takers must answer it before submitting the page. By default, required questions are marked by an asterisk (*), but you can choose to hide the asterisks from the OPTIONS section of the sidebar in the Design Survey section of your survey.

If people don't answer a required question, they will not be able to continue to the next page of the survey until they answer the question within the requirements. You can customize the error message that they see if they leave a required question blank, or if their answer doesn't meet the required range or limit.

When you analyze your results, you may notice that some respondents skipped required questions. This could mean that skip logic skipped them past the question, or that the respondent exited early.

To require an answer to a question:

  1. Click the Design Survey tab.
  2. Click a question to edit it.
  3. Click the Options tab.
  4. Select Require an Answer to This Question.
  5. (Optional) Customize the error message and set a required range or limit.
  6. Click Save.

You can require all the questions on a page at once, instead of changing the setting on each question one by one.

To require an answer to all questions on a page:

  1. In the Design Survey section, click More Actions at the top of the page whose questions you want to require.
  2. Click Require questions.

There's no way to undo this bulk action, but you can uncheck Require an Answer to This Question under the Options tab for individual questions if needed.

If you need to require a specific range or limit, or customize the error messages, you need to adjust these settings for each individual question.

On question types that allow multiple answer choices, rows, or textboxes, you can set a range or a limit on how many the respondent must answer. The following requirement options are available:

  • at least
  • at most
  • a range
  • exactly
  • all

Then you can enter the number of answer choices you want to require the respondent to answer.

If you use a Checkboxes question and choose to include a None of the Above answer option, you will only be able to use the at least or at most range options.

Customize the Error Message. Specify a required question's range or limit so survey-takers using screen readers can successfully answer your required question.