How To Create A Quiz

A quiz can be so much more than questions and answers. Quizzes are a great way to learn about yourself through personality quizzes, tackle serious knowledge test or kill some time on the toilet.

Here at Free Quiz, we post about 100 quizzes every day! SO know a thing or two about how to create a quiz. We’d encourage you to try (or take!) our quizzes first to get an idea on the correct structure for your quiz. Below is our step by step guide on making the pefect quiz to suit your goals.

Why Are You Making A Quiz?

First things first, why are you making this quiz? Knowing the end user (and their motivations) is the best way to back engineer your quiz. Ask yourself:

What Quiz Should You Make?

Okay, so now you have a clear objective TARGET Audience + Their Desire + Your Objective should = What Quiz are we making today. Now let’s choose the right quiz. Some popular formats:

Quiz Flow

To make a quiz flow, you’ll need to consider the steps and experience your quiz taker is going through. This often starts with the question of how many questions (or how long is this going to take). We default 30 questions to try and be not be too short or long. However, there a clear instances where more or less is demanded. E.g ‘Name Every Beyonce Song’ will take a little more than 30 OR ‘Quick Mood Check Quiz’ shows users this will probably be a 1 to 2 minute quiz.

Most quiz software will give you the ability to randomise questions and answers. This might not be relevant for 1 time quiz users. HOWEVER it’s important to know, typically 1 in 10 users will do your quiz twice. OR if they’re studying for an exam. They’ll take it continuously until they get all of the answers correct.

Also consider the seriousness of the quiz. For example for a personality quiz options A, B, C and D will represent a particular result. If it’s a ‘What Hogwarts House Am I’. It might be clear that all of your A answers are Gryffindor – users might catch on (which can and can’t be good thing – again Step 1: Who’s My Audience, What do they want, what do I want?)

Engaging & Relevant Questions

Here’s the big secret copywriter keep to themselves. Less is more. Unless your quiz is on quantum computing, your questions need to be clear, concise and be at a high school reading level.

YEs – High School Reading Level! That’s not patronising. Rather it ensures the absolute maximum accessibility to users from someone who English is their second language to the head of English at Oxford University. This needs to be the ‘default’ setting for any of your questions, unless you have lazer focused on your audience being higher than this reading level and the quiz content calls for it.

For trivia questions, balancing the difficulty level is extremely important. Too difficult and I’ll quit by question 3, too easy… I’ll quit by question 3. Again default setting is ‘moderate’ difficulty. However – it can be a good idea to add (and make this clear in the title of you quiz) and ‘Easy’ & a ‘Difficult’ version.

For personality questions – you’ll have to make the questions as meaningful and thought-provoking as possible. Questions need to feel like a journey offering introspective moments that build toward an outcome. The seriousness of the quiz like ‘should I get a divorce’ or ‘should I get a puppy’ should tell you how lighthearted your questions and tone should be.

Scoring Logic for Quizzes

Scoring logic for your trivia quizzes, should be, pretty straight forward, a clear correct answer and challenging incorrect. Challenging meaning they test the users underderstanding (not clearly wrong answer). E.g Which of these are Vegetables: Carrot, Rock, Water Bottle, Car, won’t be as challenging as Carrot, Tomato, Avocado, Peas (we hope).

Scoring Logic for personality will be more of a challenge. Typically an outcome like what is the best blender for me quiz can have 2 approches.

  1. User mostly clicks As = Blender 1, Bs, Blender 2 and so on.
  2. Points based quizzes:

Point quizzes means assigning a number to your As, Bs, Cs and Ds. Typically you make the A’s low numbers and the D’s high numbers. The results page will depend on a users point score (this point system is often hidden – except in 1 scenario). For example:

10 Questions, A’s are 1 point, B’s are 2 points, C’s are 3 points and D’s 4. Assuming all the questions are ‘required’ means the lowest result is 10 points and the maximum is 40. Users can be shown 1 to 4 results. Low scores meaning ‘Personality Or Preference 1’ and a High Score = Personality or Preference 2

An exception to showing users their points in this scenario are quizzes like ‘How Pieces am I’ Or ‘What percentage Slytherin am I’ – where there is a clear intent of wanting to know what intensity the user is (rather and several different outcomes).

How To Create A Quiz Online

Creating quizzes online is easier than ever thanks to artificial intelligence and quiz makters. Here are our favourite quiz platforms (*cough, aside from ours) that’ll help you start quizzin your audience.

#1 Typeform

Typeform is a quiz maker most commonly used by marketers to create intuitive quizzes that guide users through an intuitive journey. Typeforms beauty is in it’s simplicity. You can customise your quiz with your brand’s logo, colours and even images!

Best for:

Key Features:

#2 Google Forms

If you need a quiz fast, Google forms is a free and simple way to get up and running! It has less customisation BUT already has a clean interface with little to no technical set-up and can be integrated with other Google applications (e.g. Storing data in Google sheets).

Best for:

Key Features:

#3 ProProfs

ProProfs is most teacher’s go-to for sharing engaging quizzes with students. It’s intuitive for users with addons like timers, automatic scoring and instant feedback. It’s great for instructors trying to identify knowledge gaps and foster healthy competition amongst students.

Best for:

Key Features

Common Mistakes To Avoid

So you’ve got your quiz (questions and answers), your scoring system and a online tool to deploy it. Don’t be a perfectionist, send it out and start the feedback loop and make improvements as you go. With that said here some lessons we learnt the hard way that you can avoid the first time:

Having unbalanced answers: Having a technically correct 2 options but making the argument that 1 is technically ‘better’ often frustrates user. Keep the options balanced, belivable and distinct. For personallity answers, each option should feel valid (and not a trick question).

Generic Results: Imagine spending 20 minutes on a ‘what harry potter house am I quiz’ just to be told ‘Hufflepuff’. *Yawn! Do a deep dive on how my answers make me a likely huffelpuff,like reading a personalised article written just for me.

Not Optimising for Mobile: Businesses love spending time and resources on their website’s desktop (computer) user experience and often neglect what it looks like on mobile. The average website traffic is 60% mobile. Meaning more than half your quiz takers are having a bad experience if you don’t take the time to ensure this is a seamless experience.

At the end of the day – your quiz users will let you know what’s working and not working. The best thing to do is make continuous improvements and user experience. Good Luck!