6.2 Online testing tools
16-Sept-2022
2 mins
To avoid human error, there are also online tools that can test your survey questionnaires. Using these can be a good way to complement human testing, particularly with regards to survey coding on XLSForm. These tools carry out technical tests on your form, but do not test methodological components. As such, it is essential that you first complete the testing yourself (as described in 6.1), and after the technical testing, move on to testing using a third party to analyse the methodological aspects.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ODK Form Tester
ODK has developed a tool that is available both online and offline to test the technical consistency of your survey form (with xls, xlsx or csv format). All you have to do is import your questionnaire and the tool will indicate if there are any technical problems, such as missing labels, wrongly coded calculations, references to a non-existent variable, etc. Some points are not essential but simple recommendations. For example, this tool will indicate the omission of a label to groups of questions, which will not prevent your survey questionnaire from being valid (as it does not always make sense to have a label), but it does provide a reminder of good data management practices.
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Online version : will display any initial technical errors which prevent the form from being deployed.
XLSForm Design quality Testing
This XLSForm Design quality Testing was initially created by Noel O’Boyle with Medair. You can download the document as an .xlsm (with macros) and then put it in the folder with the XLSForm you want to check. When you open the tool on Excel you will just have to follow the instructions. You can thus directly check your XLSForm on your computer without internet connection required.
If you want to report a problem or submit an idea for this tool you can contact Noel O’Boyle by cliking here.