IT terminology applied to surveys

James Murray is principal of Seattle IT Edge, a strategic consultancy that melds the technology of IT with the business issues that drive IT solutions. When James gave me a list of things that are central for IT professionals, I thought it might be fun (and hopefully useful) to connect these terms with online surveys [...]

Survey Tip: Pay Attention to the Details

Why survey creators need to pay more attention to the details of wording, question types and other matters that not only affect results but also how customers view the company. A recent survey from Sage Software had quite a few issues, and gives me the opportunity to share some pointers. The survey was for follow [...]

SurveyTip: Think about the number of pages in your survey

Have you seen surveys where every question, no matter how trivial, is on a different page?  Or how about surveys that are just a single long page with many questions? Neither approach is optimal.  They don’t look great to your primary customer — the survey taker — perhaps reducing your response rate. What’s more, you [...]

SurveyTip: Randomizing question answers is generally a good idea

Showing question answers in a random order reduces the risk of bias from the position.   To understand this, think of what happens when you are asked to choose a question by a telephone interviewer.  When the list of choices are presented for a single choice question, you might be think of the first option as [...]

SurveyTip: Get to the point, but be polite

A survey should aim to be like a conversation.  Online surveys don’t have humans involved to listen to how someone feels about the survey, to reword for clarity or to encourage, so you have to work harder to generate comfort.  Although you don’t want to take too long (the number one complaint of survey takers [...]