What’s your spirit animal?

Which Disney character are you?

If you were a sandwich, what would you be?

Love them or hate them, online quizzes are as popular today as they’ve ever been. Perhaps even more so. In fact, there are entire digital communities built around telling users what European country they are, based on what they had for breakfast. They’re everywhere. And for good reason.

Quizzes are typically seen as being a bit of lighthearted fun. Something to pass the time when you’re bored. But there’s much more to them than meets the eye. When used in the right way, they can be one of the most effective engagement tools researchers can use to connect with their online visitors.

Quizzes may seem like a bit of an unconventional method to boost engagement. But when they’re relevant to your research – and to your audience – they can bring exceptional value to your project.

How do online quizzes work?

Today, there are an almost unlimited number of applications which allow for quizzes to be embedded directly into the functionality of your website, becoming an integrated part of the page design. Some tools even allow for complete customisation, ensuring that the colours, backgrounds, and buttons all fit in with the existing design of your website. They ‘feel’ like a natural extension of your content.

Depending on the selected tool, there can be a huge number of quiz types to choose from – including tests, surveys, and polls – which provide users with a personalised score or result. These results can be emailed directly to the visitor, so they’re able to keep a record of their answers and outcomes.

Enhancing engagement

In the retail world, it’s now said that customers don’t want to be sold to; they don’t want transactional relationships, but partnerships. Essentially, consumers no longer want a one-way street. They want to feel involved and connected with the brands they choose to buy from. And when they feel this connection, they’re more likely to remain loyal and spend more.

It’s a similar sort of situation in the academic world. Website visitors don’t want this one-way street; they don’t want to simply head on over to a website, read some text, and leave. It doesn’t fulfil this desire to become involved and be part of the action. And so we need to find ways to pull visitors in – to invite them to be a part of what we’re doing.

That’s where quizzes can help.

In a landscape where site visitors don’t just want to watch from the sidelines but be in the heart of it all, interactive content encourages them to participate. They’re consuming content actively, rather than passively. And best of all, quizzes make this happen in a way that’s fun. Traditional surveys, of course, ultimately achieve the same thing. But quizzes add an element of gamification that’s attractive. They play to our inherent curiosity and our need to engage in enjoyable activities.

How to use online quizzes

At Pixelshrink, we’re beginning to see more and more researchers embrace online quizzes in a variety of different ways. Here’s a small collection of our favourite applications, giving you a little inspiration:

1. Additional research

You may wish to use online quizzes to maximise visitor engagement on your project website with the aim of gathering more data for your research, or to recruit participants for further research you’re planning. Quizzes could also be utilised to collect ideas for your next project, or even open a project up to allow your visitors to contribute.

2. Targeted knowledge sharing

Quizzes can be used as a way of helping visitors find the most relevant content for their needs. By simply asking a few questions and using a tool to analyse the answers, you can deliver a curated collection of news items, research papers, and findings that are most suitable to the individual.

3. Learning & assessment

Have you thought about using quizzes as an educational tool to help visitors understand and absorb your project information more effectively? Quizzes can be a quick, easy, useful way to check understanding of data and website content and assess how you’re communicating with visitors.

4. Real-world connection

Some visitors naturally find it difficult to connect online data with real-world impacts. Using quizzes, you can help visitors to better understand and visualise how your research may affect them, or impact those in their local communities. This can generate greater connection to your project.

Helping you shape your website

The ability to encourage greater interaction from your visitors, and help them connect more with your content, your project, and your mission… That’s already a good enough reason to embrace quizzes in academic web design. But the benefits don’t stop there. There’s more value to be found.

It’s important to remember how quizzes work. At the end of the day, they’re rooted in one core activity: the collection, calculation, and organisation of real data shared by your website visitors.

And this is like gold.

What this means is that you have an entire library filled with insights about your visitors. It’s a chance to learn more about the people coming to your website, and use this information to tailor the on-site experience to their needs. It’s an opportunity to adapt and grow in the best possible direction.

It’s clear that a good quiz does more than just entertain and engage. It helps to shape web development, ensuring researchers are always creating sites that speak to their visitors.

How we can help

And if you need a helping hand creating online quizzes or in turning ideas into reality, that’s what we’re here for. Get in touch with us at Pixelshrink to find out more about creating – and boosting – your project’s online presence.