Iterate: babble then prune

I have made many many feedback forms for events I have run or been a part of. Here are some simple heuristics of mine, that I write for others' to learn from and for my collaborators in the future. Most of my events have had between 50 and 500 people in them, that's the rough range I have in mind.

1. The default format for any question is a mandatory multiple-choice, then an optional text box

Most of your form should be 1-10 questions! (e.g. "How was the food, from 1-10?") Then next to it give people an optional space to provide additional text.

This looks really clean in airtable, where the multiple-choice is on the left, and the optional text on the right. It doesn't take up more vertical space than the multiple choice alone!

All forms I make primarily look like a stack of these questions.

This is because you can get a lot of signal cheaply through getting ~100 people giving a 1-10 on how the food was, or how the talks were, or some other thing. An average of 7/10 is very different from an average of 4/10, and the latter suggests you screwed up and [...]

---

First published:
November 29th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iuMrcTJfRWgjT9DhY/ben-s-10-tips-for-event-feedback-forms

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---