An open question is a question to which the respondent can give an 'open answer'. This means that he is not limited by predefined answer categories. A good example of this question is if you ask for somebody's name.
When you create an open question in the Metatude Dialogue Designer, the respondent can enter his answer with his keyboard in a text field. When you choose 'open question' from the drop down menu and press Enter, a textbox appears. You can enter text in the textbox. This text can provide an additional direction for the respondent, for instance: 'please enter your name here'. Be sparse with these directions, the respondent will generally know that the textboxes are meant for entering his or her answer.
You can set two properties for the open question. First of all you can set the length of the textbox. This length refers to the width of the textbox. Some questions require less space.
Figure 4: Example of an open question.