Question Randomization lets you shuffle the order in which questions appear to each respondent. This helps reduce order bias, where the sequence of questions influences how people answer, and leads to more reliable survey data.
You can randomize all questions at once, or define specific ranges of questions to shuffle while keeping the rest in their original order.
How to Enable Question Randomization
Open your survey in the Builder and click on the Settings tab.
In the left sidebar, click on Question Randomization under the Settings menu.
Toggle Enable question shuffle / randomize to ON.
Once enabled, questions will be shuffled for every new respondent.
How Question Ranges Work
By default, when you enable randomization with no ranges defined, all questions in your survey will be randomized.
If you want to randomize only certain sections while keeping others in a fixed order, you can define Question Ranges. Each range specifies a group of consecutive questions that will be shuffled together. Questions outside of any defined range will remain in their original position.
How to Add a Question Range
After enabling randomization, scroll down to the Question Ranges section.
Click Add Range to create a new range.
Use the Start Question dropdown to select the first question in the range.
Use the End Question dropdown to select the last question in the range.
For example, if you set:
Start Question: "3. How easy is it to find what you are looking for when shopping online?"
End Question: "6. What do you do when you encounter problems?"
Then questions 3, 4, 5, and 6 will be shuffled among themselves each time a respondent takes the survey, while other questions stay in their fixed positions.
Adding Multiple Ranges
You can add as many question ranges as you need. Each range operates independently - questions within Range 1 are shuffled among themselves, questions within Range 2 are shuffled among themselves, and so on.
For example, you might configure:
Range 1: Questions 3–6 (questions about the shopping experience)
Range 2: Questions 1–2 (questions about shopping habits and satisfaction)
Range 3: Questions 8 onwards (questions about shopping frequency)
Each group will be independently shuffled while maintaining the overall structure of your survey.
How Randomization Works with Group Questions
BlockSurvey supports group questions - a parent question that contains multiple sub-questions nested underneath it. For example, question 4 might be a group containing sub-questions 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4.
When defining a question range, the Start Question and End Question dropdowns list both standalone questions and individual sub-questions within a group. This gives you fine-grained control over exactly which questions get randomized.
Here's how randomization behaves with group questions:
Including the entire group in a range: If your range covers the parent question and all its sub-questions (e.g., Start: question 3, End: question 4.4), the entire group and surrounding questions within that range will be shuffled together. The sub-questions within the group maintain their internal order relative to the parent.
Selecting specific sub-questions as range boundaries: You can set a sub-question as the start or end of a range. For example, setting the End Question to "4.4. What do you do when you encounter problems?" means the range ends at that specific sub-question.
Sub-questions stay grouped with their parent: During randomization, sub-questions (4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4) remain attached to their parent question (4). The group moves as a single unit within the randomized range - individual sub-questions are not scattered across the survey.
This means if you have a range that includes questions 3, 4 (with sub-questions 4.1–4.4), and 5, a respondent might see them in the order 5 → 4 (4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4) → 3, but the sub-questions within group 4 will always appear together and in their original sequence.
How to Delete a Question Range
To remove a range, click the trash icon on the right side of the range card. This removes the range definition only - your questions are not deleted.
Maximum Questions per Respondent
Below the Question Ranges section, you'll find the Maximum questions per respondent setting. This is an optional feature that can be toggled ON or OFF.
When enabled, you can limit how many questions each respondent sees. This is particularly useful when combined with randomization - for example, if your survey has 20 questions but you only want each respondent to answer 10, the system will randomly select and present 10 questions from the randomized pool.
Tips and Best Practices
Use ranges to protect survey flow. If certain questions depend on previous answers (e.g., display logic or piping), keep them outside of randomized ranges or group them in the same range to preserve their relative order.
Demographic or screening questions should generally be kept at the beginning or end of your survey in a fixed position. Avoid including them in randomized ranges.
Test your survey after setting up randomization by previewing it multiple times or sharing a test link. This ensures the randomization behaves as expected and doesn't disrupt any logic you've set up.
No ranges = full randomization. If you enable the toggle but don't add any ranges, every question in the survey will be shuffled. Add ranges if you only want partial randomization.