Twenty Top Tips to Writing Effective Surveys
July 4th, 2009 | by admin |Designing surveys is easy; isn’t it? The truth is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is more difficult. The following twenty tips will help you with your survey questionnaire design.
1. What is the survey’s purpose?
Surveys and questionnaires are conducted for many reasons. By phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.
2. Title the survey
The survey title is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so you need to encourage them that their investment will be worthwhile.
3. Try to keep the survey as short as possible
Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Minimize the questions providing you with ‘nice to know’ information and concentrate instead on the ‘need to know’ questions.
4. Use plain English, maintain consistency and avoid jargon, acronyms and asking questions that could result in ambiguous answers
Be careful when wording the question. There is every chance that if respondents can interpret any question that is not clearly written differently to that intended by the survey’s publisher then any analysis of the survey results may be worthless or at the very least misleading.
5. Don’t have long questions
Try to use concise sentences wherever possible. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to respondents abandoning a survey.
6. Ask one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like tennis and football?’
7. Avoid influencing the answer
It is important not to load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to children be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no value.
8. Ensure that the selected answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked
Allow the respondent to answer how they really feel or they may be inclined to abandon the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “Can’t say”, “No comment” or similar response option.
9. When you are compiling your survey consider how you will analyse the results once the survey has been published
If a question is asked that allows a free text open ended response appreciate that such information is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how answers can be grouped. For example “How long have you worked here?” – ‘less than 2 year’, ‘between 2 and 4 years’ and ‘more than 4′.
10. Ensure that the questionnaire flows
When asking questions group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.
11. Target your respondents
Sometimes you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t control who responds to your survey consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t fit your target profile.
12. Allow respondents to expand on their answers and/or make comments
By allowing respondents to make additional comments you will increase their satisfaction level and the comments will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections it may be difficult to analyse free text open ended responses.
13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is upheld
If you have made guarantees to the respondents that the survey is confidential you need to ensure that the individual data is not shared with anyone or used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any identifying information destroyed once the survey has finished.
14. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable
If your respondents are to be anonymous then appreciate that you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. There are advantages to allowing respondents to remain anonymous for example it would allow respondents to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Carefully consider the best response format
It is good practice to maintain a consistency in the format used for responses. When designing your survey keep in mind that when analysing the data radio buttons are easier to analyse than check boxes that offer the respondent multiple responses. Do not use a check box if a radio response would do.
16. Give the respondent an estimate as to how much time the survey will take to complete
If the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions then respondent drop out can become a problem. It is good practice to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so that the participants can determine the best time to complete the survey.
17. Inform respondents of the survey end date
Encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.
18. Trial the survey
Before publishing a live survey publish the survey as a trial to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to ensure that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.
19. Before publishing the survey check the survey carefully
Carefully check and then check again that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible ask a colleague to check the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.
20. Thank the respondent
Respondents invest their time when completing surveys and should therefore be thanked at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider an incentive such as a reward or entry into a prize draw.
Getting started is easy and there are many survey software websites to choose from.
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