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 tips will help you with your survey questionnaire design so you can write more effective surveys.
1. What is the purpose of the survey?
Surveys and questionnaires are conducted for many reasons. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in many 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 key and 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. Ensure that you do not make the survey any longer than it needs to be
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, avoid terminology and acronyms, be consistent and ensure that the questions you ask will not result in ambiguous answers
Be careful when wording the question. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a real risk that any analysis of the survey data will be meaningless or at the very least misleading.
5. Avoid questions that are long
Use succinct sentences wherever possible. Long questions can lead to a higher level of incidents where respondents abandon a survey.
6. Ask only one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like football and golf?’
7. Avoid influencing the answer
Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to children be prosecuted?’ is unlikely to have any value.
8. Make sure that the answer format used allows the respondent to answer the question being asked
Ensure that the respondent is able to answer how they really feel or they may abandon the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “No comment”, “Can’t say” or similar response option.
9. While you are compiling your survey consider how the compiled data is going be analysed when the survey is complete
Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider grouping answers. For example “How long have you worked here?” – ‘less than 3 year’, ‘between 3 and 8 years’ and ‘more than 8′.
10. Try and 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
In some cases 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 match your target profile.
12. Provide a channel for your respondents to expand on their answers 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 analyze free text open ended responses.
13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is upheld
If you have assured the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and not used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained and any contact information deleted after the survey is complete.
14. Weigh up the advantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable
If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up specific complaints or match “pre” or “post” surveys. Allowing people to remain anonymous will however allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Consideration carefully the best response format
Being consistent with the format used for responses is good practice. When designing your survey keep in mind that when analyzing the data radio buttons are easier to analyze than check boxes that offer the respondent multiple responses. If a radio response format can be used do not use a check box format.
16. Inform the respondent as to the approximate time it will take to complete the survey
Respondent drop out can occur if the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions. It is good practice to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so the respondents can choose the best time to complete the survey.
17. Provide respondents with the survey end date
Encourage respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise respondents as to 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 proof read the survey several times
Check and then check again that a survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.
20. Thank the respondents
To complete surveys respondents have to devote their time and should be thanked either in a covering letter, at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as entry into a prize draw or a reward.
Getting started is easy and there are many survey software websites to choose from.