Captcha Verification Question

Suite
Customer Experience Strategy & Research
Product
Qualtrics
What's on this page

About Captcha Verification

Captcha verification (or Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is a common web technique used to help ensure that your respondents are real humans and not a program written to spam your survey. In a captcha verification, the respondent is presented with a picture (or “challenge”) of words or characters, and the respondent must correctly type out those characters to proceed.

A captcha where you are asked to prove you are not a robot
A captcha where you are asked to prove you are not a robot

Though most humans find this task easy, spam programs have a much more difficult—nearly impossible—time. This preventative measure can be important when you are offering monetary or other incentives to take your survey.

Qtip: We recommend placing your captcha verification question on its own page at the beginning of your survey so that respondents don’t have to redo the captcha if they fail validation on another question.

Captcha is a third-party service provided by Google. No respondent information is sent to Google as part of this service. Visit Google’s reCAPTCHA page to learn more. It’s also important to note that not all languages are supported by this feature, and that supported languages are owned and decided upon by Google. See Google’s documentation for more details.

Qtip: Captcha doesn’t prevent respondents from taking the survey multiple times. Consider using features like authenticators or individual links to prevent multiple survey attempts from the same individual.

Captcha Options

Captcha Version

The V2 captcha verification is the default and only option. When respondents select I’m not a robot, they’ll be asked to identify objects in a series of images before they can proceed through the survey.

Qtip: V1 captchas have been deprecated in compliance with industry standards. No data is affected by this change, and all V1 captchas will automatically change to V2.

Alignment

You can align your captcha in the center of the question by selecting Center.

Centered captcha button with the Alignment set to Center in the left question options pane
Centered captcha button with the Alignment set to Center in the left question options pane

Theme

You can change the theme of your captcha. By default, the theme is Light. Below, the Dark theme is pictured.

Captcha question with the dark theme
Captcha question with the dark theme

Respondent Experience

V1 and V2 captchas have a different respondent experience.

V2 Captcha

To complete a V2 captcha, click inside the box.

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Sometimes this is enough, but sometimes you’ll need to complete an additional challenge.

A window coming from the checkbox with a visual challenge
A window coming from the checkbox with a visual challenge

The symbols at the bottom allow you to:

If you’re having trouble understanding the challenge or have been assigned an impossible task, click the refresh icon or the Skip button to get a new one.
Respondents who are visually-impaired can use the audio icon to have the challenge and its options read aloud to them.
For respondents who are confused, the information icon will explain the challenge in more detail.
Qtip: Data on passing or failing the captcha verification question isn’t recorded. Instead, individuals who fail the captcha verification won’t be able to proceed in the survey, and will either remain an incomplete survey response or a response in progress.

Privacy & Terms

If the respondent would like to learn more about the Google’s privacy features and terms of service, they can click Privacy & Terms.

FAQs

What kind of project can I use this type of question in?

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