To implement a system that only accepts open-ended questions like "What would make your life easier?" in a coding environment, you can use a combination of regular expressions, natural language processing (NLP), and form validation techniques. Below is a conceptual example using JavaScript, with some Python examples for more advanced processing:
This is a simple implementation that checks if the question starts with "What," "How," or "Why," and doesn't contain keywords like "which," "select," or "choose."
function validateQuestion(question) {
// Convert the question to lowercase for uniformity
question = question.toLowerCase();
// Define regex patterns for open-ended question starters
const openEndedPattern = /^(what|how|why)/;
// Define regex patterns to avoid closed-ended questions
const closedEndedKeywords = /(which|select|choose|is|are|do|does|would)/;
// Check if the question starts with an open-ended word and doesn't contain closed-ended keywords
if (openEndedPattern.test(question) && !closedEndedKeywords.test(question)) {
return true; // Question is valid
} else {
return false; // Question is invalid
}
}
// Example usage
const question = "What would make your life easier?";
if (validateQuestion(question)) {
console.log("Valid question");
} else {
console.log("Invalid question, please rephrase.");
}
For more complex validation, you can use Python with an NLP library like spaCy
to analyze the structure of the sentence. This example checks if the question is open-ended by analyzing the first word and ensuring it's not a binary or multiple-choice question.
import spacy
# Load the spaCy model for English
nlp = spacy.load("en_core_web_sm")
def is_open_ended_question(question):
# Process the question with spaCy
doc = nlp(question.lower())
# Check if the first word is an open-ended question starter
open_ended_starters = {"what", "how", "why"}
first_word = doc[0].text
# Simple check based on first word
if first_word in open_ended_starters:
# Additional checks for closed-ended patterns
if any(keyword in question for keyword in ["which", "select", "choose", "is", "are", "do", "does", "would"]):
return False
return True
return False
# Example usage
question = "What would make your life easier?"
if is_open_ended_question(question):
print("Valid question")
else:
print("Invalid question, please rephrase.")
You can integrate the above JavaScript function into a web form to validate the input before submission. Here’s a basic HTML example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>Question Validator</title>
<script>
function validateQuestionForm() {
const question = document.getElementById("questionInput").value;
if (validateQuestion(question)) {
alert("Valid question submitted!");
return true;
} else {
alert("Invalid question. Please rephrase to be more open-ended.");
return false;
}
}
function validateQuestion(question) {
question = question.toLowerCase();
const openEndedPattern = /^(what|how|why)/;
const closedEndedKeywords = /(which|select|choose|is|are|do|does|would)/;
return openEndedPattern.test(question) && !closedEndedKeywords.test(question);
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form onsubmit="return validateQuestionForm()">
<label for="questionInput">Enter your question:</label><br>
<input type="text" id="questionInput" name="questionInput"><br><br>
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>
If you want to perform more advanced checks, such as using machine learning models to classify the question type, you could:
nltk
library in Python for more complex language processing tasks.This setup allows you to ensure that only questions prompting subjective, open-ended responses are accepted, enhancing the quality of the feedback or data you collect.