Surveys must make sense to those taking them. Directions and questions must be clear; response choices must be obvious; and the words used must be appropriate for the education and language of the participants.

Directions
Breaking directions into steps can help to reduce errors. Presented below is a widely used instrument in the field of adult attachment (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991) that asks participants to rate themselves on each dimension and then to go back and circle the alternative that they consider most like them. The survey has very clean lines with clear responses. However, there may be a problem with the directions. Surveys that use this instrument report that between 10% and 30% of the participants don't go back and do the second step.