Developing Instructional Videos to Direct Business Respondents Through a Feature-Heavy Online Survey Instrument

The economic census, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau every five years, collects operational and performance data from roughly 4 million U.S. business establishments in non-farming industries. The level of detail requested, along with wide variation in the complexity of businesses, requires a highly sophisticated and flexible software design for online data collection. Thus, for the 2017 Economic Census, the Census Bureau redesigned and expanded its Web survey instrument, providing respondents with several new, more convenient features to help them complete the economic census.