I’m going to eventually write a post about my 18-month journey to taking a tracker from mobile unfriendly to device consistent. That’s not this post. This post is about the terminology being used when discussing surveys that are being adapted for mobile and a lesson I’ve recently learned about how we use these terms thinking we all understand each other,… Read more »
I was recently part of a marketing training class where the teacher answered a question about surveys being conducted to garner audience perceptions and experiences with, “Stop doing surveys! Everyone who takes them lies.” Of course, being me, I offered, “Well, now that you’ve obliterated my profession, what do you propose we do to collect that information?” His answer was… Read more »
Before I get going, I want to start by defining “audiences.” In this context, the audiences in question are those who we are asking to participate in our market research studies. Typically, the failure is happening with quantitative studies, not qualitative studies (at least, in my experience, this is the case). In quantitative surveys, we find bloated surveys, biz-speak language,… Read more »
Writing survey questions can seem like a walk in the park until you realize how many ways there are to do it poorly. From leading questions to hitting a double-header in just one question, there are a number of things to watch for when putting together your survey questions. Bias I’ll touch on this briefly because I have a full… Read more »
Last year, I wrote a series of articles with survey design tips for new market researchers, whether doing DIY market research or new to the field in a market research company. Those articles focused a lot on all of the preparatory work that should go into designing a questionnaire, but aside from an article about scales, didn’t spend a lot… Read more »
The cyclist journeys home The story begins with a traveler cycling home from work. All the way, the cyclist kept being passed by other cyclists, and couldn’t help but wonder, “I’m exerting so much effort, but I keep getting passed! I know I’m slower than most, but this is starting to feel silly.” The cyclist then did a quick analysis… Read more »
You’ve finally reached a point where you’re ready to dive into programming your survey. If you don’t already have survey software you’ve used in the past (or if you’re looking to renew a license and exploring options), this step can feel pretty daunting as you try to figure out the best price for the features available. Here are some tips… Read more »
Likert. Likert-style. Positive. Negative. Words. Numbers. There is so much about scales for surveys that can be so confusing when you get right down to it. Truth be told, choosing the right scales and right scale setup for your questions in your survey can be both easier than expected and tougher than expected. Let’s look at how scale selection and… Read more »
Whether you’ve written surveys for decades or are just beginning, the question or survey length is one that’s been around for quite some time, but probably not quite as prevalent an issue as it has become in the past few years. With survey participants increasingly participating via mobile devices, the question of length has become pretty widely debated.
If you’ve followed the previous few weeks’ worth of survey design tips, you might notice I’ve been spending a lot of time in the efforts and questions that should be answered before you even start writing the survey. There’s a reason for that – taking the time up front to address these items will save time and effort in the… Read more »