 People often don't realize how much complexity there is to adding an other category to an item on a survey. Consider this question that you might fill out if you go to a commercial lab to get a lab test. You might see the question, from what service were you referred, and you can choose from choices one through four, primary care, cancer center, women's hospital or occupational clinic, or you can choose number five, which is other. You actually need two data fields for this item if you want to include the other choice. The first data field is to hold the number they choose. If they choose primary care, that number is one, but if they choose other, that number is five. Then you also have to include another item to hold the text entry for the other choice. If they choose one, primary care, then this field will be blank. In fact, most people will probably choose one of the choices that's not other, so most of these fields will be blank. But whenever someone chooses five, other, we need to make sure they also fill in this additional text field to describe what they mean by other. Want to learn more about designing online surveys? Take my free online course, Understanding Research Forms, Surveys and Instruments. The link is in the description.