In 2010, Statistics Canada launched a new electronic (web) questionnaire program.  As part of an overall corporate initiative, the program will expand multi-modal collection into mainstream operations. Surveys will be designed to use electronic questionnaires as the primary data collection mode in a sequential multi-mode environment.  Statistics Canada plans to develop and deploy electronic questionnaires for more than 140 business and social surveys over the next five years.
This streamlining strategy raises new challenges.  To ensure the collected information meets quality requirements, special care must be taken in the conceptual framework for our electronic questionnaires.  A corporate solution is currently being explored and developed. This presentation provides a brief overview of this initiative as well as the current questionnaire development and deployment process.  It will also cover new guidelines for electronic questionnaires at Statistics Canada: how the guidelines were developed, their continuing evolution and possible future directions.  Finally, the paper will illustrate some preliminary experiences from usability testing conducted with business survey respondents and how these findings may be used to aid development efforts with our social and household surveys.