With Snap you can use image maps to create rating scales. The software comes with a number of 5-star and 10-star rating scales that enable a respondent to select from one to five or one to ten stars as their response.

This worksheet explains how the rating scale has been created, and shows you how to change the default colors.

Background

Snap includes a Map Control Editor which allows you to build controls that change when a respondent clicks on them. Snap provides some sample Map Controls to make it easy to create rating scales. The sample star rating Map Controls use an image of grey stars, which change color to yellow when clicked on.

In normal Map Controls, the selected area changes and other areas stay as they were. To make a Map Control work as a rating scale, the Map Control Editor includes an option to change the areas for all the previous or later codes as well.

Summary of steps

Step 1: Display the rating question as a Map Control
Step 2: Load the Map Control style
Step 3: Make changes to the Map Control definition
Step 4: Save your new Map Control

Step 1: Display the rating question as a Map Control

This example will use the same rating questions as those in the Satisfaction survey.

  1. Create the questions as shown below.

  2. Select all the questions.
  3. Choose Show in the toolbar topic.

  4. Select As Map Control in the next drop-down list and check the Show box. The rating questions change to grey boxes and the [Map control] button becomes active. If you are working with a question that has previously had a Map Control, the previous control will be displayed.

Step 2: Load the Map Control style

  1. Click the [Map control] button or double-click the grey Map Control area to open the Map Control Editor.
  2. Select File|Load map control. By default the folder containing the Map Control template files will be opened.

  3. Select the 5Stars-Medium. Map Control style file. (If you wish, you can select one of the other sizes.) The 5Stars-Medium map is loaded into the Map Control Editor. It consists of a grayscale image of five stars, together with five defined areas, one for each of the rating codes.

  4. Check how it works by clicking the Preview tab at the bottom of the pane.

    When you click on one of the stars, it changes to yellow, as do the stars on its left.

Step 3: Make changes to the Map Control definition

The default settings for this Map Control make all the stars yellow with a yellow outline when they are selected. Because they are simple shapes, there is little point in applying the complex effects such as Blur which are best applied to photographs. This example changes the fill color and intensity.

  1. Click the Designer tab to leave the preview.
  2. Click the first star on the left to select it.
  3. Click the Fill button IM: Fill button to open the Fill dialog.
  4. Click the color bar to display a color palette and select a red.

  5. Type 20 in the Intensity scale and click [Close].

    The left-hand star will have changed to red.

    You can preview it to see the effect of the change.

  6. Repeat for the other stars, giving them the same colour but intensity values of 40, 60, 80 and 100.

  7. Preview the Map Control again. The stars still have a yellow outline when they are selected.

  8. Click the Designer tab to leave the preview.
  9. Select all the area definitions, by clicking on the first and then holding the [Ctrl] key down while you click on the others.
  10. Click the IM: pen button button to change the outline. You can change the color or width. For this example, uncheck the Include outline in output setting.

  11. Preview the Map Control again. You should now have plain stars that become a more intense red depending which one you select.

You can also change the order that the stars are highlighted in.

  1. Click the Designer tab to leave the preview.
  2. Select Tools | Options to open the Options dialog.
  3. Check the Reverse scale box and click [OK].

  4. If you were using this effect, you would probably want to change the intensity order to match the highlighting order. Preview the result.

Clear the Reverse scale and change the intensity order to match the highlighting order if you do not want to do this.

Step 4: Save your new Map Control

If you wish to re-use these settings, you need to save them as a new file.

  1. Select File|Save map control and browse for the folder where you store your analysis styles.
  2. Save it under the name 5star_red. It will be saved as an .isf file, and you will get a message saying the settings have been saved.
  3. Click [OK] on the Map Control Editor window to return to the questionnaire.
  4. When you publish your questionnaire, the rating scales will look much like this.

If there is a topic you would like a worksheet on, email to snapideas@snapsurveys.com