Survey Design & Outreach Tips

How to Create Visual Community Engagement Surveys for Urban Planning

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March 9, 2021

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Updated December 19, 2025

Have you experimented with icons, videos, or photos as part of your community engagement? While images are no replacement for translations and multi-lingual surveys, visuals provide an important added layer of communication and clarity when language doesn’t always cut it.

In a community engagement landscape where accessibility and low-barrier participation are now core competitive differentiators, visual surveys are a planner's new best friend. They resolve linguistic ambiguity and ensure that your outreach remains inclusive even in the face of tricky dialects and literacy barriers. Today, visual elements are no longer a mere 'alternative'; they are a best practice for any planner who wants equitable, high-reach community engagement.

Best Practices for Visual Surveys in Urban Planning

The strategies below are all easy to implement in the Maptionnaire Community Engagement Platform, but still apply regardless of the platform you currently use.

Think visually, not just verbally: Pair your plain-text questions with intuitive icons or images to reduce cognitive load for the respondent. Embed audio or video clips within the survey to introduce a project or guide participants through the process.
Simplify complex planning with visuals. Don’t assume everyone speaks the language of zoning, land use, or transportation engineering. Use your survey visuals to define "tricky" terms—like the difference between a comprehensive plan and a housing element.
Show (interactive!) maps and plans in your survey when explaining or asking about about locations
Enable non-text feedback: Allow respondents to submit images, like photos from their neighborhood, when it makes sense as an alternative to written descriptions.
Contextualize with Culture: Visuals aren't universal. A "thumbs up" or certain colors can carry unintended meanings in different cultural contexts.
Prioritize Brevity: To avoid survey fatigue, community engagement surveys should be lean. If a picture is worth a thousand words, use it to cut your text by half.

Examples of Visual Surveys

Below are some visual examples from the Maptionnaire Community Engagement Platform — but they're applicable for other platforms too.

Smileys are a great way to describe emotions. Leaving feedback in an audio format is also possible in Maptionnaire.

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Using icons to complement and explain the text makes understanding easier. — Visual surveys include icons to complement and explain the text to make understanding easier.

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an example of a visual survey for a pubic participation project — Using images can sometimes be more descriptive than a piece of text could ever be.

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an example of a visual questionnaire from Jyvaäskylä — In Jyväskylä, Finland, respondents were also told what urban and city planning means, and what effects their opinions have on plans.

Learn more about designing engagement surveys
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Maptionnaire is perfect for designing spatial and visual surveys.

Explore our survey features

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Learn more about designing engagement surveys ‍

Maptionnaire is perfect for designing spatial and visual surveys.

Maptionnaire is perfect for designing spatial and visual surveys.

You'll also enjoy reading:

Learn more about designing engagement surveys
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