Comet has already written a draft survey on a long strip of paper. "Eight questions!" she says proudly.
Wren reads it slowly. "What do you notice? Question three is an open box. People can write anything."
"That is the fun part," Comet says. "Freedom!"
Nova blinks. "Would you like a hint?" she asks. "Let me answer your draft as five pretend members. Then look at what comes back."
Nova fills in five practice answers in five different styles. Comet stares at them.
"Same idea," she says slowly. "Five different spellings."
Wren hands you a pencil. "Data analyst, let's draft questions that are easy to count."
When people type answers into an open box, they spell, shorten and capitalize things in different ways. So the data may not be uniform.
A question with fixed choices gives every person the same list to pick from. Those answers are easier to count.
Today you draft five fixed-choice questions and one open-box question for the Commons, then look at a trial run.
Comet's first draft, from the Commons Count story. Wren has put a star next to two questions to look at in next week's privacy pass.
| Draft question | Answer type |
|---|---|
| Your name (starred) | Open box |
| Your phone number (starred) | Open box |
| How often do you visit the Commons? | Fixed choices |
| When do you usually visit? | Fixed choices |
| What one thing should the Commons add next? | Open box |
| How many times did you visit last week? | Number |
| How did you answer this survey? | Fixed choices |
| Anything else you want the council to know? | Open box |
Nova answered "What one thing should the Commons add next?" as five pretend members. These answers are made up for the story.
| Pretend member | Open-box answer |
|---|---|
| Practice 1 | More hours |
| Practice 2 | longer hrs |
| Practice 3 | A bike rack |
| Practice 4 | open later |
| Practice 5 | bike racks |
| What the lab shows | True or false? |
|---|---|
| Open-box answers may not be uniform. | ? |
| "More hours" and "longer hrs" are about the same idea. | ? |
| Fixed-choice answers are harder to count than open-box answers. | ? |
| Comet's draft asks for things Wren wants to check next week. | ? |
Great drafting. Tomorrow the crew finds out what happens when some voices go missing.