It's almost considered "standard practice" to have a "Progress Bar" -- indicator that tells the respondents where they are in a branched or multi-page survey. However, if you think about this for a minute there are a few other strategies that you can use to keep your users engaged :
- Single Page Survey -- In some cases if you can fit the entire survey into one single scrolling page. The argument here is that users know _exactly_ how long the survey is. The browser scroll bar (Vertical Scroll Bar) on the right gives a visual indicator on how long the survey is and how much of it has been completed. Usually there is not much sense in having a "Progress Bar" in such a model (cause there is really only one submit button for the entire survey.)
- Creative Progress Bar Schemes -- Another creative way would be to make the progress bar "engaging" -- what do I mean by this -- Lets say we are doing a automobile/car dealership survey -- the progress bar can be a tachometer or a fuel gauge. These kinds of progress bars obviously require customized programming since it'll probably only make sense in a particular industry vertical.
- Using text to engage respondents -- When designing the survey questions you can make the wordings more informal -- "Finally we would like to ask ....." or have some to the effect "Almost there - 4 more questions..." etc.
It's important to note that, having a "Progress Bar" is not the only way to give relevant contextual information to your respondents. We can think of other creative ways like the ones mentioned above to give users a sense of where they are in the survey process.
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