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Tash
Ensure your surveys give enough options
Earlier this week, I answered a brief survey from a Government body – correction, I tried to answer a brief survey but the questions stopped me.
For a series of items, you had the choice of yes (I want to get this) or no (I don’t want to get this). And you had to answer yes at least one to have your survey accepted.
However, for three of the items I already have them. So my answer is neither yes nor no, leaving me in a quandary about finishing their survey.
I choose to answer no because I didn’t want duplicates but I wonder how much that has skewed their results? And how many other people in my position chose no?
When writing surveys and forms
It is really important to think about your questions from every angle to be sure people can complete your survey/form.
Making your questions easy to answer
- keeps people happy rather than frustrated
- makes your page more accessible
- means the response you gather will be meaningful rather than nonsense because people make up answers to get through
I think it’s especially worth thinking about if you have made the answers black or white – can you be sure no one will want to answer grey?
Assuming only two currencies definitely excludes some people
If you’re asking for a gender, under 18/over 18 or in business/not in business, there is a clear either or response. However, as soon as you have a less concrete option, be careful to include that in your possible responses.
While ‘other’ or ‘unknown’ may seem weak answers, they do at least give people the option of completing your questions without getting stuck or making up answers.
And a ‘both’ or ‘all of the above’ answers give a lot more choice, too.
There definitely needs to be better training when it comes to creating and implementing a survey in your business. The sad thing is that many of these businesses have no clue that the survey was not set up well and they go on to use the data collected. They’re often left wondering why they didn’t get the results that they had hoped for.
I think you’re 100% correct, probono – so many people don’t realise their limitations or errors so keep on working with inferior results. It’s a bit scary that people could base business decisions on results that are absolutely meaningless due to a poorly worded question.
I agree with this post. I have attempted to complete surveys that weren’t worded correctly or were ambiguous. I don’t understand why these surveys even make it out to the public because the mistakes or unclear questions seem so obvious. And i agree with you probono and Tash, it is kind of scary that important business decisions could be base on such inferior information.
Those surveys are frustrating to answer I find, Joe. Doubly so when you think about the meaningless results and how they may be used…
Companies should really be more strategic in making their surveys. We should maximize the returns we can generate from our surveys by tailor-fitting them to the market and to the type of business that we do.
You’re right, Vida, there is strategy in running surveys (when, what to focus on, etc) but also within the actual surveys to make them meet the anticipated goals.