Maptionnaire has several ways to ask about places. The main question is whether respondents mark new places themselves or choose from places you have already put on the map.
Map questions at a glance
| Question type | Use it when… | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Map point, line or area | Respondents mark new places themselves: a pin for a place, a line for a route, an area for a zone. Add a pop-up to ask follow-up questions about each marking. | “Mark places where you feel unsafe”, “Draw your route to school” |
| Pop-up map | You already have the places on a map layer and want respondents to click them to read information or answer questions about each one. How to | Click each proposed park design to see it and say what you think of it |
| Select map | You have the places on a map layer and the answer is simply which ones respondents choose. There’s no pop-up with questions. How to | “Select the neighbourhoods you visit weekly” |
| Geobudgeting | Respondents allocate resources or features on a map (e.g. money, types of housing, park furniture/features)How to | Spend €100,000 on improvements in your area |
A quick way to decide
- Should respondents add their own places? Use a map point, line or area question.
- Should they react to places you’ve prepared? Use a Pop-up map if you have questions or information about each place, or a Select map if you only need to know which places they choose.
- Should they divide money or resources (e.g. features in a park)? Use geobudgeting.
Common mix-ups
- Using a Select map to move the map. A Select map records choices; it isn’t meant for navigation. To zoom the map to an area the respondent picks, use a Choose one question with location zoom.
- Splitting map questions into a separate survey. Keep them in the same survey as your other questions so you can compare groups. See Keep map and standard questions in one survey.
Preparing a map layer for Pop-up map or Select map
Both need a map layer (shapefile, GeoJSON, WFS, or one drawn with Create a map) in which each feature has a unique ID of whole numbers. The ID can’t be changed after the survey is published. See the GIS data checklist.