# Designing Surveys and Forms with AI Playbook

Published by HubForge Global Impact Network Foundation. A free, practical playbook for designing monitoring forms and evaluation surveys in any field, with any tool. AI helps draft and check questions; people remain responsible for the decisions, ethics, language, and testing.

## The SURVEY method

- **Scope:** Start with decisions, indicators, and the empty tables the answers will fill.
- **Unpack:** Write clear questions in the respondent's language, with one idea and a defined time period.
- **Responses:** Use complete, non-overlapping choices, counts, and fully labelled scales.
- **Validate:** Design the flow, consent, skip logic, and constraints.
- **Ethics:** Collect only what is needed and preserve meaning across languages.
- **Yield-test:** Watch real people use the form, improve it, and check data quality.

The companion workbook has thirteen worksheets for applying the method to your own monitoring form or evaluation survey. Its interactive version saves answers in your browser and supports exporting a design brief. Avoid entering identifying or sensitive respondent data.

## Read, practise, and download

- [Playbook library](https://playbooks.hubforgeglobal.com/)
- [Read the playbook](https://playbooks.hubforgeglobal.com/designing-surveys-and-forms/)
- [Open the workbook](https://playbooks.hubforgeglobal.com/designing-surveys-and-forms/workbook/)
- [37-page playbook PDF](https://playbooks.hubforgeglobal.com/designing-surveys-and-forms/playbook.pdf)
- [27-page workbook PDF](https://playbooks.hubforgeglobal.com/designing-surveys-and-forms/workbook.pdf)
- [One-page cheat sheet PDF](https://playbooks.hubforgeglobal.com/designing-surveys-and-forms/cheat-sheet.pdf)
- [Home visit XLSForm](https://playbooks.hubforgeglobal.com/designing-surveys-and-forms/downloads/home-visit-xlsform.xlsx)
- [Household survey XLSForm](https://playbooks.hubforgeglobal.com/designing-surveys-and-forms/downloads/household-survey-xlsform.xlsx)

The XLSForm files contain survey, choices, and settings sheets. Review their example questions, logic, translations, and settings for your context before deploying them.