Survey authoring

Survey languages and respondent text

Dayalogs separates the language of your questionnaire from the language of the respondent interface, so you can run surveys in many languages while keeping buttons, validation messages, endings, and consent text consistent.

Short version — write the survey content in the languages you need, choose the respondent interface language for each one, and optionally customize the wording that respondents see.

Survey content

The actual question text, options, headings, and instructions you write for respondents.

Interface language

The language used for navigation, validation, consent, and final screens.

Custom wording

Survey-specific wording for a button or message when the default tone is not quite right.

What respondents see

A respondent sees two kinds of text: the questionnaire content you authored, and the Dayalogs interface around it. Keeping those separate makes multilingual projects easier to manage.

  • Questionnaire content: question titles, option labels, page titles, intro text, and custom endings.
  • Interface text: start, next, previous, submit, validation messages, privacy labels, rank controls, and default completion screens.
  • System state messages: survey closed, quota full, link expired, already completed, or quality endings.

Supported interface languages

The survey itself can contain any language you can write. The Dayalogs respondent interface is currently available in these languages:

English
French
German
Dutch
Italian
Spanish
Catalan
Portuguese
Basque
Galician

If your questionnaire is in another language, you can either provide survey-specific wording for the respondent interface, or fall back to the closest officially supported interface language for that audience.

When content and interface languages differ

You might translate the questionnaire into a language Dayalogs does not yet support natively for interface controls. That is fine: the survey content can still be in that language, and you have two practical options for the surrounding interface.

  • Provide specific wording for that survey, so buttons, validation messages, and final screens use the language and tone you need.
  • Fall back to an officially supported language, when a close enough interface language is acceptable for that audience.

Research in Russian

Questions and options are in Russian, while the respondent interface uses either custom Russian wording for that survey or an English fallback.

Regional campaign

The same survey has Catalan and Spanish content, each with matching respondent controls.

Internal company survey

The wording is informal, but the validation and consent text remain consistent and controlled.

Custom wording for one survey

Custom wording is useful in two situations: when you need respondent interface text in a language Dayalogs does not support natively yet, and when the default wording is technically correct but not the tone you want.

  • Translate respondent-facing controls for a specific survey without changing the platform globally.
  • Turn “Next” into “Keep going” or “Seguim!” for a more conversational survey.
  • Use a more formal completion message for regulated or institutional projects.
  • Adjust validation messages so they match the survey’s tone and audience.

Custom wording applies only to that survey and only to the respondent-facing interface. It does not change the admin interface or other surveys in the account.

How to set it up

You can define survey languages and respondent interface choices when importing a survey, when creating one through an MCP-compatible AI client, or later from Dayalogs tools that update the survey definition.

The recommended workflow is simple: decide which languages your respondents need, choose the interface language for each respondent version, then preview the survey before collecting responses.

Quick reference

You want to...
Use...
Run the survey in English, Spanish or Catalan
Write the questionnaire in those languages and pair each one with its matching Dayalogs interface language.
Run the survey in a language Dayalogs does not support natively yet
Keep the survey content in that language and either provide custom wording or fall back to a supported interface language.
Keep the meaning but change the tone
Survey-specific custom wording.
Reuse one interface language across several respondent versions
Map different survey content languages to the same Dayalogs interface language.
Make sure respondents see the right wording
Preview each language version before fieldwork starts.