I saw the oddest question in a survey the other day. The question itself wasn’t that odd, but the options for responses were very strange to me. 1 - Not at all Satisfied 2 - Not at all Satisfied 3 - Not at all Satisfied 4 - Not at all Satisfied 5 - Not at all Satisfied 6 - Not at all Satisfied 7 - Somewhat Satisfied 8 - Somewhat Satisfied 9 - Highly [...]

A tale of three types of cheating. If you are going to fudge the numbers, you’d better be very clever. Last December’s Annual Year in Ideas issue of the New York Times magazine included an idea titled “Forensic Polling Analysis” describing how Nate Silver analyzed results published by a polling firm called Strategic Vision. Silver decided to take a look at the results because Strategic Vision had been censured by the American Association for Public Opinion [...]

I came across a published report recently that made me wonder why people persist in reporting that there is a causal relationship when the data doesn’t justify the assertion. Actually, the reasons aren’t all that hard to figure out. Usually, it’s because the relationship seems obvious, and sometimes it is when the person writing the report has a bias they wish to share.But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s start with a couple of definitions: A [...]

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The press release for a study by Mintel, a world-wide market research firm, states that "people still prefer real-life recommendations to online". The study was intended to test the idea that real-world referrals are still more important than those received online.  Mintel's results show that only 5% of people buy based on suggestions from bloggers or chatrooms, while over 5 times as many buy on recommendations from friends, relatives, and spouses or partners.

I don't [...]

Professional secrets for do-it-yourself surveys In this half-day interactive training class, attendees will learn: How to increase the number of people who open and respond to your survey How to reduce the number of people abandoning your survey How to ask the right questions for your business issues and get useful answers If you are already running your own online surveys you know that there are lots of reasons to survey, from [...]

Proctor and Gamble UK has been forced to pull a TV ad due to misleading claims based on a poorly designed survey.

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority felt that the survey results were too likely to biased by the invitation process, which included providing free samples of Clairol Nice 'n' Easy (the advertised product) prior to the survey and a entry in a drawing for a photo shoot in New York. The ASA also felt that surveys might have been completed by [...]

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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 may be limiting your options for effective survey logic. Every question on a new page The survey taker has to check the "Next" button too many times, with each [...]