An objective of each online study is to motivate a respondent to completely fill out the entire questionnaire. More and more online studies are conducted which do not take into account the respondent’s time and effort to fill out a questionnaire. Using graphical support, questionnaires can become more interesting for the participant and motivate to complete the entire interview.

The scripting package which became known under the name AJAX seems to be able to take over some of the tasks which were only possible by using FLASH some years ago. AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and combines several online technologies in a scripting language. AJAX technology became available on a standard level only in 2007 and only a few market research projects have been using this technology until now. An examination of the effects occurring under the updated technical basic conditions appears to be appropriate.

To test the effects we are undertaking a methodological experiment using different kinds of graphical scales.

Examined variables are:

* Response Rate /Drop-Out

* Time needed to complete the interview (duration)

* Consistency of the answers (computation with Saaty algorithm)

* Perceived quality of the interview by the respondent

An identical item list is used in the context of an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) module. The AHP method is particularly suitable for the examination of the methodical question of scaling, since the quality of the answers can be measured calculating the consistency ratio non-reactively in the background without any effects whatsoever on the interview.

The study makes available the two technologically different approaches of graphical scaling support which are randomly integrated.

1. Application of a graphical slider based on classic Java technology with graphical support

2. Application of an identical graphical scale supported by AJAX

The results of the study will lead to an improvement of the creation of scales in the future in order to raise the quality standards of online interviewing by improving the understanding of the graphical interface design process in online surveys.