I developed and validated an index measure of gun desirability through a large national survey experiment: Transmitting Desire (Sola 2021). It has several advantages versus measures of past behavior (e.g. gun ownership) and measures of purchase intent (e.g. New Year’s resolutions). You can implement it in Qualtrics quickly.

Step 1

Question formatting and HTML code

Gun desirability is an index of pistol, AR-15, and hunting-rifle desirability questions. These questions are displayed in random order. Each features a horizontal sliding scale with an interval from No Desire (internally recorded as 0) to Most Desire (internally recorded as 100). I use 12-point font for these labels, but appropriate size depends on the rest of your survey.

pistol.png

40% width

ar-15.png

70% width

hunting_rifle.png

75% width

A zip of all three prompt images is available for download.

Edit the following question HTML to suit (1) the image address once you have uploaded it to Qualtrics and (2) the appropriate relative width for the prompt in question:

question.htmlHTML

<!-- Replace [IMAGE SOURCE ADDRESS] and [RELATIVE WIDTH] -->
Take a look at the gun below:
<div style="text-align: center;">
  <img src="[IMAGE SOURCE ADDRESS]"
       style="width:[RELATIVE WIDTH]%;" />
</div>
<br />
Use the slider to show how desirable this gun is to you:

Other Qualtrics options: no value is shown to the participant, a response is requested rather than forced, and the mobile-friendly option is checked.

Step 2

JavaScript code

I use JavaScript to disable an initial anchor point on the slider. Replace the JavaScript section of each question with the following:

addOnload.jsJS

/* hides slider 'handle' until participant clicks */
Qualtrics.SurveyEngine.addOnload(function() {
    var q = jQuery("#"+this.questionId);
    q.find(".handle").css('visibility', 'hidden');
    q.find(".track").on("click touchstart", function() {
        jQuery(this).find(".handle").css('visibility', 'visible');
    });
});

Step 3

End result

There should be no default value (aka anchor point). After clicking on the slider, a handle appears to mark the value selected along the interval.

Slider example image

Rendered output — horizontal slider, handle invisible until first click, no default anchor. Please cite Sola 2021 if used in your research.