Accessibility When Using SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey encourages web accessibility and provides tools to help you create more accessible  surveys. This article offers tips for creating surveys with Section 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2 (WCAG2) in mind. 

To start off, get to know some common accessibility terms, and learn how you can create accessible surveys or use assistive technology to navigate SurveyMonkey surveys.

Here are common accessibility terms, their acronym, and description:

You can use  SurveyMonkey’s features and the checklist below to help create more accessible surveys with Section 508 and WCAG2 standards in mind. Accessibility also depends on your survey content, questions, and settings. 

An accessible survey:

• Is designed so that people with varying hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive abilities can complete it.

• Enables respondents using screen magnifiers to successfully complete the survey.

• Has the text elements to enable a survey taker to successfully navigate and complete a survey using a screen reader—assistive software that converts on-screen text into audio using a text-to-speech (TTS) system.

• Can be completed using voice recognition software.

• Doesn't require a mouse or keyboard to complete.

Accessible themes are designed with color contrast and brightness in mind to help more people use your survey, including people with colorblindness.

Our default survey theme, Catalyst, along with Heritage or Arctic themes, support accessible survey design. Avoid adjusting the colors or style settings of the theme without checking the effect on color contrast.

To keep surveys accessible, please don’t make changes to accessible themes. 

If you create a custom theme, you can use a tool like the Tanaguru contrast finder to check whether the color combinations meet  WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards for contrast ratios.

To help make your survey more accessible, make sure you:

✅ Use an accessible theme, displayed with an accessibility icon.

✅ Choose question types and settings with accessibility in mind.

✅ Images and videos need alternative text (alt text). Images can't be seen or read by all, so add a short description of the image to be stored in the code for assistive technology's use
Our various features all let you add alt text:

Videos in your survey should include closed captions, text displayed on a video showing what people say and describe sounds,like [music playing] or [door slams]) for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

✅ Clearly identify required questions in text.
By default, requiring a question adds an asterisk next to the question. Keep the asterisk, but don’t rely on it alone to explain which questions are required.  You can also use a survey introduction to let respondents know that the question is required.

✅ Set your Star rating question icons to black, and check how they appear to respondents.

✅ Write clear error messages for respondents who enter an invalid response to a question with answer validation applied or skip a required question.
This way, an error message appears  to guide them. Customize the error text so that people know specifically how to answer the question, so they can move forward in the survey.

✅ Place text fields close to row labels on Multiple Textboxes or Matrix/Rating Scale questions, adjust the question layout to keep the Labels and Text fields close together.
When a row label is positioned far away from the text field, it may cause issues for screen magnifiers. 

✅ Use Page titles for Heading 2 (H2). If you want to use an H2 in your heading rank, turn on page titles. See below for details on Headings.

✅ Use the Email Invitation or Web Link to send your survey. 

❌ Other ways of sending your survey may not be accessible. Check accessibility before using another method.

❌ Don’t set your Survey Format to the One Question at a Time or Conversation survey format, as these aren’t accessible.

❌ Don't edit default Navigation buttons without checking how the new labels work with a screen reader.
By default, navigation buttons are labeled Previous, Next, and Done, which work well with screen readers.

❌ Don't password protect your survey.
The page to enter a password isn't accessible.

Screen reader experiences can vary by question type and survey settings - see exceptions listed in the accessible surveys checklist.
For the best survey taking experience, we recommend using the most updated version of one of our supported browsers.

The table describes what each heading level represents in a SurveyMonkey survey. Some headings may not work as expected with a screen reader. Please check your preferred screen reader's manual to learn how to navigate surveys.

SurveyMonkey surveys don't use heading levels 5 and 6.

SurveyMonkey is dedicated to helping people create surveys that are accessible. If you have feedback on how we can do better, please complete the SurveyMonkey Accessibility Feedback Form.

While we may not be able to respond to your feedback directly, your comments can help us identify areas to improve.