Questionnaire development and testing for traditional paper and pencil questionnaires have tended to focus on the key elements of question type selection, wording, and order. Where self-administration is used, graphic design is also important. The transition to computer-assisted methods has added a new set of concerns, namely technical correctness (e.g., branching, calculations, text fills, etc.) and, more recently, usability.

The advent of web-based interviewing has further complicated the questionnaire development and testing phases of survey design and implementation. We now face new concerns about web-based communication styles, unique question types and formats, screen layout and use of color, added complexity to tests of technical correctness, and technical performance (e.g., speed of page delivery, appearance under different browsers, etc.).

This paper describes a series of testing protocols for Web questionnaires. It conceives of a Web questionnaire as having six main components: presentation, instructions and questions, logic and functionality, respondent environment, application software, and hosting platform. Effective testing requires that each of these components be evaluated and tested individually, as well as a thorough test of the assembled whole. The type of testing done and its point in the lifecycle of survey design and implementation will vary by component. In developing these protocols the authors draw on the survey methods literature, the literature on software testing, and their own experience both testing computer-based questionnaires and deploying hundreds of Web surveys.