Survey Builder

ALCHEMY ZOSI · ENTERPRISE PRODUCT DESIGN

Transforming Course Feedback With a Custom Survey Builder

A scalable survey creation tool that within Zosi's enterprise platform to capture more relevant learner feedback by enabling admins to build course-specific surveys.

Company

Alchemy Zosi (Encora)

Domain

EdTech

Timeline

4 weeks (2021)

Role

Senior Product Designer

CONTEXT

Zosi is a multi-surface enterprise EdTech platform designed to support different user personas across administration, learning, and discovery. The admin user needed a scalable survey creation tool to capture relevant learner feedback.

PROBLEM

Existing feedback methods added friction for both survey creation and the learner response experience. Admins and marketing teams needed feedback in structured, measurable formats to evaluate and improve course quality. Each course varied in content, difficulty, and goals, requiring tailored feedback rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

SOLUTION

A flexible survey builder integrated with the course creation flow, allowing admins to create tailored surveys for each course. We aimed at making survey creation efficient for admins while ensuring a simple, intuitive experience for learners completing the survey.

ROLE

Product Designer

TIMELINE

6–8 weeks

TEAM

Product Manager, Business Analyst, Designer

Responsibilities

Interaction Design, Competitive Analysis, workflow design, Prototyping

MY ROLE

Worked closely with product managers, business analysts and engineers to define feature scope, prioritize requirements, and ensure feasibility of interaction patterns within the platform.

PROCESS

How we approached this project?

A structured approach from research through
wireframing to validate decisions at each stage.

Stakeholder Alignment

Conducted quick sync with internal stakeholders like admins and BAs to understand feature requirements and user needs.

Competitive Analysis

Reviewed existing survey builders (e.g: Google forms) to study familiar patterns and best practices for ease of creation and response.

Experience Definition

Adapted best practices and designed survey builder to fit Zosi's context and styling, balancing flexibility and simplicity.

Design & final Prototyping

Created wireframes to validate structure and flow, followed by high-fedility screens and mockups for dev handoff.

Product Context

Understanding the system.

The initial version of the platform focused on delivering core training functionality required for launch. At this stage, there was no built-in capability to collect structured feedback or assess learner understanding.

As the product matured, admins began identifying the need to gather insights directly within the platform. Existing workflows relied on external tools or manual processes, leading to fragmented data and inefficiencies.

This created an opportunity to design a native survey builder that would enable teams to create, manage, and analyze feedback within the same ecosystem.

Competitive Analysis & Design Direction

How are others doing this?

To design an intuitive yet flexible survey builder, we analyzed commonly used form creation tools to understand how different products balance simplicity and complexity.

Rather than directly replicating any one tool, the goal was to identify patterns that align with admin workflows and learning platform needs.

Key Observations:

Linear question creation flows are common with lesser learning curve.
Configuration/setup should to be simple and fast.
Structure is typically question-first, not system-heavy.

Design direction:

Instead of reinventing patterns, the builder was designed to follow familiar mental models, reducing the learning curve for admins.

System Design

Designing a Reusable Builder System

Rather than designing a tool limited to surveys, the builder was structured as a modular system that could support multiple use cases.

The builder was built on 3 core layers:

1. Structure

2. Configuration - Question Types

3. Logic & Features

Although the initial focus was on survey creation, the core building blocks were intentionally designed to scale to other form-based use cases, including learner assessments and exam questionnaires.

A walkthrough of the survey builder within the Zosi platform.

Context

Zosi needed a way to gather meaningful, course-specific feedback from learners after they completed a training module. A generic, one-size-fits-all survey wasn’t useful each course required tailored questions based on content, difficulty, and learning outcomes.

Problem

The existing system could not support customized surveys, offering only static feedback options.
Every course had different learning objectives, so a generic survey would not deliver actionable insights.
Admins needed feedback in specific formats to measure content quality and improve future courses.

Goal

Design an intuitive survey builder that integrates seamlessly into the course-upload process, allowing admins to create flexible, course-specific surveys.
Enable surveys to be saved as templates so other admins can reuse them across courses.

Context

What led us to design a survey builder?

Existing feedback methods added friction for both survey creation and the learner response experience.

Admins and marketing teams needed feedback in structured, measurable formats to evaluate and improve course quality.

Each course varied in content, difficulty, and goals, requiring tailored feedback rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Solution: We designed a flexible survey builder integrated with the course creation flow, allowing admins to create tailored surveys for each course.

We aimed at making survey creation efficient for admins while ensuring a simple, intuitive experience for learners completing the survey.

Final Designs

Based on these insights, the solution was designed as a modular builder system.

Key design elements

Breakdown of the core components that form the foundation of the Survey Builder workflow.

Section Organization

Organize surveys into collapsible sections with titles, it is easier for admins to create structured surveys and easier for learners to take the surveys.

Drag and Drop

Reorder sections and questions without redoing work

Templates

Save surveys as templates that can be re-used for other courses to save time.

FEATURE INTRODUCTION & EVOLution

What started as a feature to address a gap became a reusable system that supports multiple workflows across the platform.

The survey builder was not part of the initial MVP. It was introduced later as a response to evolving product needs and admin requirements for structured feedback.

The developed features focused on enabling teams to quickly create and deploy surveys within the platform.

Multiple Question Types
Structured sections for better organisation
Templates and improved workflows

Extending Beyond Surveys

Over time, the same builder was leveraged to support-

Learner Assessments Modules
Exam like questionnaires

By reusing the same underlying structure, the platform avoided building separate tools for each use case.

Impact

Key Outcomes

01 Enabled data-driven product decisions

Gathering structured feedback directly from users allowed teams to better understand learning effectiveness, identify gaps, and continuously improve course content and overall product experience.

02 Improved operational efficiency

Admins could create and manage surveys independently, reducing reliance on external tools. Standardized question formats and interaction patterns created a more cohesive and predictable experience for admins.

03 Established a scalable system

Enabled reuse across surveys and assessments.

The builder evolved alongside the product, supporting more complex workflows without requiring separate tools.

Create Survey

Quick access button to start creating a new survey. Opens the survey builder with a blank template.

Survey Landing Screen

Survey & Templates Tabs

Switch between viewing your surveys and reusable templates to speed up survey creation.

Survey List & Status

View all surveys with their ID, name, last updated date, and publication status. Published surveys show a green indicator, drafts show gray.

Survey Information

Add essential survey details including Survey ID, Name, and Description. All fields are editable and saved with your survey.

Drag & Drop Reordering

Use the grip icon to drag and drop sections to reorder them. Helps you organize survey flow without recreating content.

Section Management

Organize your survey into logical sections. Each section can have its own title, description, and multiple questions. Sections can be collapsed/expanded for easier navigation.

Question Types

Choose from Multiple Choice, Single Choice, Short Answer, Paragraph, Linear Scale, Dropdown, Checkbox Grid, and Multiple Choice Grid.

Create Survey Screen

Respondent Experience

See exactly how your survey will appear to respondents. All question types render with their actual UI components.

Section Display

Sections are clearly labeled with titles and descriptions, making surveys easy to navigate for respondents.

Edit Anytime

Return to the builder to make changes. Your work is preserved when switching between preview and builder.

Preview Survey

Key Design Elements

Visual breakdown of the core components that form the foundation of the Survey Builder workflow.

Survey Information

Sets clear context for the survey by defining its purpose, assigning a unique identifier, and enabling option to reuse through templates.

Survey Builder

Supports structured survey creation through flexible sections, multiple question types, and simple reordering controls.

Survey Preview

Allows admins to review the full survey flow, validate structure, and return to editing before publishing, reducing errors and rework.

Solution

A modular survey builder where admins can:

Create new surveys from scratch and add multiple question types.

Save and name surveys within course context and reuse in multiple courses.

Reorder, duplicate, or delete question.

Attach the survey during course upload to be sent immediately after training completion

The result:

The experience was simple, completed survey immediately after finishing the course, with no extra navigation required for learners. Admins got a tailored survey tool that felt native to their existing course-upload flow.

Key Takeaway

Context matters, embedding the survey builder directly into the course creation workflow removed friction and made feedback collection feel natural rather than like an additional task. Users valued integration over standalone features.