A national survey moves from paper to tablet

Context

Every year, this administration ran a household survey on paper questionnaires. Six months of re-typing separated the end of fieldwork from publication, and transcription errors required costly checks.

Our solution

• Digital questionnaire with 140 built-in consistency rules
• 140 tablets deployed offline, with interview geolocation
• Five-day training for enumerators and supervisors
• Daily supervision dashboard: progress, interview length, quality alerts

Results

• Usable database as soon as fieldwork ended
• First results published within seven weeks
• Inconsistency rate below 1%
• Re-typing costs eliminated

« For the first time, we published our results before budget preparation. »