Web Survey Bibliography Relevance & Research Question: Open-
ended questions are often used to gather short numeric
information in self-administered web questionnaires. Respondents
are encouraged to enter numbers, quantities or frequencies into
input fields, most often without any computerized formatting
constraints predominantly in order to prevent item nonresponse.
However, the absence of any formatting restrictions encourages
large variances in answers deviating from the desired format,
including value ranges, estimations, alphanumeric supplements,
or even different measuring units which affect data quality
negatively, and increase the efforts for data cleansing and
preparation. Thus, concise and clear formatting instructions are
needed to guide respondents providing answers in the desired
format. Considering the fact that instructions are likely to be
ignored the question arises how different modes of verbal
instructions and visual cues can be applied to improve the
impact of formatting instructions, and f