Validating Custom Item Required Responses

[Trevor Newell]

[edited from support email]

I have a question about how we can go about requiring a response on a custom items with multiple radio buttons. We have two forms of this nature, each with multiple radio buttons. In the first form, MediaLab will continue returning to the form if at least one item is not checked. What we would like is for MediaLab to display an error message indicating that the form is required, not simply loop back to the form without any correcting feedback.

In the second form, subjects could continue without selecting any radio buttons and it will move on to the next form. I'd like to make the form required in some way, even if it's only for a single radio button on the form.

Any advice on how to accomplish this?

[Trevor Newell]

A suggestion I could make would be to look into implementing a bit of javascript into your custom item so that the fields can be properly validated before the user is allowed to continue. You may want to use google to find more information. Unfortunately, we don't currently have a sample showing how this can be done; however there seems to be a few other posts where users have noted a similar request.

The following may give a bit more insight into a solution:
www.empirisoft.com/Support/showthread.php?t=1314
www.empirisoft.com/Support/showthread.php?t=1330
www.empirisoft.com/support/showthread.php?t=222

[Trevor Newell]

[edited from followup support email]

I have a validation script for the radio buttons working now. The only issue I find with it is that it displays an alert for each item <note from moderator: see fix below>, which would be fine if the prompts were item specific but that isn't the case. Nonetheless, we don't anticipate people skipping the entire questionnaire, so it isn't an issue and it is working as designed.

Attached you can find our sample files for future reference and use.

<attachment revised and reposted, see below>

[Don Lund]

I downloaded the script you attached here and couldn't get it to work. In fact when I tried to run through your questionnaire, I got the "This website cannot be loaded" error message.

Does this questionnaire work for you still?

I have a workable knowledge of HTML, but am a Javascript idiot. Is it possible for you to post some directions on where variable names are, and what filename (?) should be used for the form name.

Any help with this would be much appreciated.

[jarvis24]

Don--I've attached a revision of the previous attachment that simplifies it and takes care of the repeat feedback if more than one item is no answered. The sample que file that accompanies it also contains just this item flanked by simple instruction items so that there should be no file location issues that arise when testing it. I've also added a few comment lines that explain some of complicated looking stuff. Please let me know if it helps!

[jarvis24]

Note in response to the orginal post (see above), one could change the syntax in this custom item to require that just one or more questions be answered (as opposed to all). I didn't test it, but you should be able to simply replace all the instances of "||" (meaning or) with "&&" (meaning and). This would then generate the feedback message only if no questions were answered.