Date of birth question validation and options to capture age 🎂

The date of birth (AKA DOB) question in Ethnio allows you to collect participant birth dates in a clean, validated date format, using a built-in calendar picker, full localization and translation support. Our favorite option is to only ask for year of birth to gather less PII from participants, but still be able to calculate age indefinitely and accurately.

Let's get into how the question works, customization options, and how participant input is validated.

Start by adding the question

Head to your study and then:

1. Head to Editor > Questions from the left nav
2. Click + Add Question.
3. Under Personal Info, select Date of Birth.

Once you've added the question you'll have two important options for that DOB question to review:

1. Validation - this will force the numbers entered to be a legitimate date, with anything today's date or earlier being valid.
2. Year of birth - if you want to reduce the PII that respondents/participants are asked to enter, turn on only asking for year of birth.

How validation works for respondents

The main job of validation is to flag missing or invalid numbers, depending on if you ask for full DOB or just year of birth. This is what participants might see:

Age and DOB in Pool - automatic updates over time in Pool

Age is always calculated automatically for participants over time using the system of attributes in Ethnio Pool (Enterprise-only).

Head over to Pool Filters > Age/Date of Birth for more on how to filter based on age.