Open-end tiles

Open-end questions display in Topline tiles in different ways, depending on the type of values that respondents are permitted to enter. Free text open-end questions display as word clouds. Word clouds are a visual way of depicting information that by nature cannot be easily quantified.

Every distinct word that respondents enter is captured and displayed in the tile alphabetically, though some words are excluded. So-called "stop words" will not appear in the cloud. For a list of these words, see the external website metacpan.org.

The more times a single word is captured, the bigger it appears in the tile. Over the course of fielding, the word cloud will display the most commonly entered words, with the most common appearing the largest. Punctuation in addition to spaces will split words. These words are also hyperlinks: when one is clicked, a Response report is generated which displays the given open-end field for just those records that entered the clicked word.

Open-end questions where the data input is strictly numerical create a different type of tile. This tile type by default displays the average value. It is possible to modify the output to change what is displayed, such as a density chart:

For more information about configuration options for open end numeric Topline tiles, see Open-end numeric tile display options.