So what does your “error message” look like when a respondent makes a mistake?

In the largest Usability study conducted on this issue (“Eyes Don’t Lie” – 2009), we have come across many ways in which marketing researchers likely compound the issue of respondent errors. The above image shows a sample “error message” from one of the studies’ interfaces. Note that the errors are highlighted with an arrow, and text saying “your answer is incomplete”.

• From a Usability point of view, this is what needs to be done – the respondent is directed to the specific problem lines where they had omitted an answer (which is much better than an error message on top of the screen saying “you must complete all questions below”).
• However, what is problematic is the visual cue to potentially ‘tick’ the answer that is closest to the red arrow (as the video of this respondent does show to be the case).

Recommendation: highlight the row, or indicate at the question/statement level where there is an omission or error. Anything else is likely adding error on top of error.