Great Survey Design

© 2014 Widgix LLC dba SurveyGizmo. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Materials are owned by Widgix LLC. Unless otherwise specified, all materials appearing herein, including the text, logos, graphics, icons, images, as well as the selection, assembly and arrangement thereof, are the sole property of Widgix LLC. Materials must not be copied, reproduced, modified, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any form.

Surveys: What Are They?

• A survey is a collection of questions asked repetitively to a sample of a population to mathematically derive characteristics of the total population.

Surveys: What Are They Good For?

Great Survey Design Cycle

Why is This Cycle Important?

• It’s a framework that provides guidelines when you work with clients and stake-holders

• You’re likely doing parts of it already• Those are likely the parts of your process that

work!

The Trifecta: Need, Design & Act

Unit 1: Need

Goals and Objectives

Needs: We All Have Them

• Questions to ask:– What are we trying to figure out?– What kinds of reports or data do we want or

expect?– What will we do with this data when we’re done?– Who is our intended audience or population? – How are you going to access the target

audience?

Examples of Need

– How well known is my brand?

– Will customers buy this product?

– If we offer X benefit, will our employee happiness go up?

– Why are my customers not converting?

– Will my product do well in a new market?

Set a Survey Goal

• A goal is not a single learning point – a goal is what you plan to do with this data, and why. – Good goal: grow your company into new

markets.

“A survey will determine which markets are good for our existing products, so that we may expand our customer base.”

– Bad goal: make more money for your business.

“A survey will help us make more money.”

Learning Objectives

• Determine your learning objectives– These should all support your overall need and goal– A good amount of learning objectives: three– You should have no more than five!

Brainstorm

Selection and Refinement

Eye on the Prize: ROI

• If the cost of the survey is greater than the possible ROI, it’s a waste of time and money,

• Without an ROI measurement, there is no encouragement to take action.

• Without clearly defined actions, survey

results may not have an ROI.

Unit 2: Design

Organize Brainstorm

Refine Brainstorm Ideas into Questions

Guide: Writing Questions

• Multiple choice versus open-text questions– Quantitative versus qualitative

• Phrasing and language use

– unclear language – grammar

– ambiguity – too technical• Language can differ btw demographic groups• Keep your questions:– Brief – Simple– Relevant – Specific and direct

Qualitative Versus Quantitative

• Quantitative – Numeric in nature, extrapolated to whole population

• Qualitative – Touchy-feely, give context to quantitative questions

The Four Horsemen of the Surveypocalypse

Eliminate Bias

Emotional Bias

• Asking loaded questions• Asking neutral-seeming questions on a

loaded topic

Identity Bias

• Asking “Do you like SurveyGizmo?” with a SurveyGizmo logo in the corner of the survey

Isn’t Mel a great trainer?

Option Bias

• Required, non-applicable questions• Leading or restrictive options• Different types of scales• Option lists of death

? ? ?

Conversational Bias

• Surveys as a conversation• Respondents giving the answer they think

you want to hear

Mr. Black

Job Interviews

Today

Were you fired from your last

job?

Lack of Focus

• Covering too many diverse topics• Additional questions that do not meet the

survey goal• Questions that are not inline with the

learning objectives• Questions that do not derive actionable

results

Miscommunication

• Know your audience and the language that they use and understand– Avoid technical terms unless it is

appropriate– Define terms if necessary

• Remember to speak in your company’s voice• Have a peer review for clarity

Survey fatigue as a cultural trend

• Cultural survey fatigue– The average

respondent is fatigued already, just by nature of: • Receiving emails

from organizations• Suggestions on

receipts and from cashiers

• Try to avoid…– Leading questions– Loaded or suggestive questions– Fatiguing question types – large tables,

lots of open-text or essay questions– Sensitive questions– Highly technical language

The Wrap-Up: Question Mistakes to Avoid

Re-establish Focus

Unit 3: Build

• Design: Involves thinking about psychology, emotions and words. It is the more abstract phase.

• Build: Involves taking into account security walls, logic, combatting fatigue, bias, and poor data collection; It is the more active phase.

How are Design and Build different?

Stages of Build

Construct

The Radio Button

• Quantitative – Scale (should be horizontal)– Categorical (should be vertical)• “All of the above” is a no-no!

Neutral or not?

Scale questions: The controversy

61-6

The Checkbox: Choose All That Apply

The Checkbox: Beware!

Choosing more than one option changes statistical reporting a lot!

Multi-Text Questions

• Qualitative• Explorative or

un-aided response; used for lists

Please list the names of phone providers that you have seen or heard advertised.

Essay Questions

• Qualitative and explorative

• This is a way to gather unaided responses for your survey

3. What is your favorite thing about SurveyGizmo?

Table Questions

Do NOT use as a space-saver – these are fatiguing!

Table Questions: What’s Totally Okay

Build your survey.

Test It.

Get buy-in from your stakeholders.

Validate

• Number, Email, Percent, Date• RegEx – Validate patterns like phone

numbers, zip code, etc.• Capitalize each word• Autosuggest answers

Test Reports• Are your questions reporting the way you

expect?• Are you able to create the reports you

need using the data you are collecting?• Is the data in the format you need?

Apply and Test Logic

Different Types of Logic

• Fatigue-fighting:• Page jumping• Show-when logic• Percent branching• Piping (repeating)

• Bias-fighting:• Randomization• Disqualifiers• Survey timing/combatting straight-lining• Vote protection

Perform a Pilot Study

Unit 4: Collect

Survey Mode

Mode introduces different forms of bias – so how the data is collected is important!

Choose mode of survey

Choose Sample

• Your options are: survey everyone, or survey a percentage

• Why?– Cost– Survey fatigue– You will miss certain sections of the

population– Using a statistically valid sample is just

as effective (or more effective) than trying to survey your entire population

What is Sample? Why is it Important?

More on Sample

A sample is statistically valid when every single person in that population has a equal chance or probability to be in a sample that you select.

What is the Ideal Sample Size?

How many responses do you need for your survey to be statistically accurate?– It depends.• How accurate do you want the data to

be? (margin of error or confidence interval)• How repeatable do you want the

results to be?• How large is your total population?

How to Determine Sample Size

• Estimate 400 responses• Use a sample calculator!

Sample Calculators: Magic?

http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

Caveats

#1: If you are segmenting data for comparison, the segments should be the same as the segments in the represented population.

#2: If you are cross-tabbing data, ensure that the data collected (per question that you are cross-tabbing) is statistically valid when representing the larger population.

Where Do You Get Sample?

• Pull a population from your customer list.–Warning: Do NOT use your entire

customer base.– If everyone has the same chance of being

randomly selected, you are not biasing your results in any way.

• Panel Companies: A panel company is an organization that exists to sell anonymous survey responses to marketers and market researchers.

Engage Panel (opt.)

Panel Companies: The Issues

Drawbacks:– Using incentives– Cannot access market researchers– Some panel companies will buy from each

other when they cannot provide the sample needed

– Hard to determine level of bias in sample• If the panel companies award “points”

for websites like Amazon – helps reduce sample bias based on incentive

Incentives

• Biases your sample (ex. Toys R Us gift card as incentive)

• Incentives can jeopardize your data (because respondents just want to get to the end)

• Safeguards:– Survey page timer with

disqualification– Shorter surveys– Red herring questions– Clean data (eliminating straight

liners, Christmas trees, etc)

Unit 5: Report

Clean Data

How to Clean Data – Step 1

• Look out for:– Unusually quick responses– Unusually long responses

How to clean data - Step 1

1. Patterns/Straightlining 2. Red herring/logically inconsistent

4. Checking all or Checking one3. Gibberish, one word, fake text

How to clean data - Step 2

• Prepare your data for analysis– Beware of:• Inconsistent numeric values (How old

are you? Etc.)• Breaks in validation

• Do not introduce new bias! – Changing question text

• Run individual reports for each learning objective.– Use this process to determine the “highlights” of

data collected as they relate to ultimate actions so that you can truly understand the most significant findings of your research.

Run Initial Reports

Run Preliminary Reports

• Your preliminary reports should be focused on your original learning objectives.– Did you get your questions answered? – Is the data in the format you expected?– Are you seeing the trends that you anticipated?

Running reports: Key factors

• Make sure your data makes sense• For any overt trends you are finding in the

data, make note of them and ensure that they are important towards the objectives that you had set for your survey

Analyze Data

Analyzing text responses

• How will you deal with your qualitative data?– Keyword frequency–Word clouds– Positive/negative

Analyzing text responses

Bucketing– You can use the SurveyGizmo Open Text

Analysis tool.

Segmenting data for analysis

• Often, your survey will contain demographic and firmographic questions to create segments in your survey.

• These segments should remain the same from start to finish of the survey process.

Good indicators of a trend:

• When you have data that isn’t statistically sound but is still interesting, you can call it “directional data”.– This data gives you an idea of what your

population is saying, thinking or feeling, but you cannot use statistics to back it up.

Create Final Report

Suggestions for effective reports

Stage 1: Write a summary–What was the ultimate goal of this survey?–Who was surveyed?–Who was the population?–Who responded?– Include basic highlights of the survey

audience and your data to introduce the findings

Stage 2: Write a mini-report for each individual learning objective (ex: 401K changes).•The last section for every learning objective report will include the recommended actions to take based on the results of the survey (these should not be a surprise!)


Stage 3 (optional): Interesting and unexpected trends found– Good to know, not need-to-know– Ex. Perhaps you found a new, unintended

segment of your population that could help you to make good business decisions moving forward

•This is going the extra mile for your clients!


Stage 4: Conclusion– Recap what actions are going to be taken (if

any) based on your findings.– Get all of stakeholders to agree to those

actions.– Create a survey to be sent to stakeholders in

order to gain feedback for the project and put actions in motion.

– Important for the next stage, Act: ask stakeholders to provide metrics that can be used to measure the success of the actions that will be taken.


Tips for communicating data

• Try to anticipate questions about the report

• Know the details• Be honest

Unit 6: Act

Actions: The key to success!

• Reiterate project goals and objectives• Motivate the stakeholders to take action

based on the data collected• Establish a reasonable timeframe in which

actionable results (positive or negative) can be expected.

Empower Action Taking

Monitor Actions

How to get feedback

• Send a short survey to all stakeholders • Ask for any suggestions • Allows you to work better together in the

next study and improve the process.

Get Feedback on Survey

Publish and Share Study Results

Great Survey Design Cycle

© 2014 Widgix LLC dba SurveyGizmo. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Materials are owned by Widgix LLC. Unless otherwise specified, all materials appearing herein, including the text, logos, graphics, icons, images, as well as the selection, assembly and arrangement thereof, are the sole property of Widgix LLC. Materials must not be copied, reproduced, modified, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any form.

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Great Survey Design