The Dutch Annual Business Inquiry: Developing and Testing an Electronic Form rs
Ger Snijkers, Evrim Onat, Rachel Vis & Robert ‘t Hart; Statistics Netherlands, The Netherlands
A major issue in Dutch policy as to data reporting in general is reduction of response burden. As a consequence,
Statistics Netherlands strives for reduction of data reporting for individual businesses, as well as making data
reporting for individual businesses as efficient and easy as possible. One way to do that is providing electronic
forms via the internet. This is also what businesses ask for.
In 2004, the paper for the Dutch Annual Business Inquiry was redesigned. First of all, the form was stripped to
items necessary with regard to output demands. Secondly, the form was redesigned as to the structure (sections of
items), instructions and wording. And thirdly, the form was restyled as to lay-out. This opened the road to
developing an electronic version of this complex questionnaire.
In a number of steps this form was developed and tested. In a small usability test functional issues of the form were
investigated, using a draft version that very much looked like the original paper form. This test also resulted in the
identification of navigational issues, edit rules and design issues that make an e-form different from a paper form.
The result of this test was a prototype of the e-form. In the second step the prototype is discussed with regard to
programming issues, since for various branches of businesses the form has to be generated automatically.
Next a new electronic form based on the recommendations from the previous test was developed. In the summer
of 2005 this electronic form was built and in the fall it was tested with a small number of businesses. The aim will
be to send out a user friendly electronic form to 7000 businesses in 2006.
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