written by
Shashidhar S A
Founder, HubForge Global · MERL & AI Innovator
- En-Intrapreneur
- Driving evaluation ecosystems through People, Process & Product
- Co-Chair, IOCE Comms & Storytelling
- Co-Lead, EvalYouth Global Champion Engagement
Contents
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A HubForge playbook
Design the forms your teams fill every week and the surveys that show whether a programme worked. Then do it faster with AI, without handing over your judgement.
Where do you want to start?
Keep the working tools close
Take the playbook offline, work through the companion workbook, or start from a ready-to-adapt XLSForm.
Chapter 1 ·
Eight questions from eight fields. Each hides one classic flaw.
Why this matters
Chapter 2 ·
One steers the work while it happens. The other judges whether it worked. Decide before you write.
You need
Your answer appears here.
Side by side
Different rhythms
Meet the two examples
A fictional nutrition programme in 60 villages. You need no nutrition knowledge; the lessons work in any field.
From decision to question
If you cannot fill all four boxes, the question is not ready.
Chapter 3 ·
The SURVEY method works for both kinds. Each stage asks one question of your draft.
Chapter 4 ·
Answers fail in predictable places. The method is built on decades of survey research about where.
Tourangeau, Rips and Rasinski, 2000
Tap a step to see how it fails, and which stage of the method protects it.
Groves and Lyberg, 2010
Total survey error: tap any source to light up the stages that reduce it.
Four more findings
Chapter 5 ·
The rules to keep open while you write.
Each card shows a question that breaks a rule. Tap it to see the fix.
A natural order for a survey
Logic patterns, in XLSForm
Every consent script says
Collect less, protect more
Before you write a question, look for one that has been tested. Copy it from the source document, adapt only what you must, and note the change.
Chapter 6 ·
The same question gets different answers on a doorstep, a phone call or a screen. Design for the mode and for every respondent.
Six modes
Reaching everyone
Chapter 7 ·
AI drafts fast and checks well. It cannot tell you what your respondents understand.
AI is good at
AI is not good at
Five steps, and the loop between three and four is where the quality comes from: always push back on the first answer.
Tap each mistake to see the check.
The one it can't play: the person on the other end of the question.
Three openings for each stage. Replace the highlighted words, then push back on the first answer.
Chapter 8 ·
Four tools to use on your own draft. Each one teaches the rule behind it.
Paste a question and its options. The doctor flags common wording problems. It catches patterns, not meaning.
Then ask your AI
You are a health worker on a home visit. Try a weight under 7 kg and watch the referral question appear.
What this visit saw
XLSForm is the spreadsheet KoboToolbox, ODK, SurveyCTO and Survey123 all read. Add questions; the sheets write themselves.
Always upload the finished file to your tool and test it on a phone.
A rough estimate from the number and kind of questions. Your pilot gives the real number.
Estimated time
0Chapter 9 ·
Design on paper. Pick the tool. Let AI write the XLSForm, and let the tool check it.
Tick what is true for you
Best fits
| Tool | How you build | Offline | Languages | Cost | Best for |
|---|
Plans, prices and limits change; check each tool's own pages.
Ready to use
Upload either one to KoboToolbox, ODK Central or SurveyCTO, then change it to fit your programme.
The recipe
AI often invents functions or misspells a list name. The tool's converter is your spell-checker. Use it every time.
Chapter 10 ·
Ten checks for your kind of instrument. Tick them off.
Start with the decisions.
Chapter 11 ·
In a survey the interviewer is part of the instrument. After collection, the codebook and the feedback loop make the data usable and fair.
West and Blom, 2017
Answers vary by who asks. A manual and good training make every interviewer ask the same question.
Training
During fieldwork
After collection
Chapter 12 ·
The research and practice behind every stage, a glossary of every term, and a one-page cheat sheet.
The whole method on one page. Pin it next to your desk, or hand it out at training.
Understand → Remember → Judge → Respond. Find the step a question trips on, and fix that.
HubForge Global Impact Network Foundation · Share freely with credithubforgeglobal@gmail.com · www.hubforgeglobal.com · linkedin.com/in/shashidharsa
written by
Founder, HubForge Global · MERL & AI Innovator