Writing Effective Surveys Top Tips
July 6th, 2009 | 
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Designing surveys is easy; isn’t it? The truth is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is more difficult. The following tips will help you with your survey questionnaire design so you can write more effective surveys.
1. What is the survey’s purpose?
Questionnaires are conducted for many reasons. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in many ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don’t lose sight of the survey’s purpose.
2. Give the survey a good title
The survey title is key and an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.
3. Don’t make the survey any longer than it needs to be
Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Pay attention to the ‘need to know’ questions and minimise ‘nice to know’ information.
4. Use plain English, maintain consistency, avoid jargon and acronyms and don’t ask questions that may result in ambiguous answers
Take care when wording a question. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a risk that any analysis of the survey results will be worthless or at the very least misleading.
5. Avoid having long questions
Use short sentences wherever possible. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to a higher level of incidents where respondents abandon a survey.
6. Ask only one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like athletics and golf?’
7. Don’t influence the answer
Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell tobacco to children be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no value.
8. Make sure that the chosen answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked
Ensure that the respondent is able to answer how they really feel or they may be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “Can’t say”, “Don’t know” or similar response option.
9. At the same time that you compile the survey consider, when the survey is complete, how the compiled data is going be analysed
Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how answers can be grouped. For example “How long have you worked here?” - ‘less than 1 year’, ‘between 1 and 5 years’ and ‘more than 5′.
10. Ensure that the questionnaire flows
Group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.
11. Target your respondents carefully
You may want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t control who responds to your survey consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t fit your target profile.
12. Provide a channel for your respondents to expand on their answers or make comments
By allowing respondents to make additional comments you will increase their satisfaction level and the comments will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember though for a large sample collection it may be difficult to analyse free text open ended responses.
13. If the survey you are conducting is to be confidential ensure that you honour your pledge
If you have made guarantees to the respondents that the survey is confidential you need to ensure that the individual data is not shared with anyone or used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any identifying information destroyed once the survey has finished.
14. Weigh up the benefits of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable
If your respondents are to be anonymous then appreciate that you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. There are advantages to allowing people to remain anonymous for example it would allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Carefully consider what the best response format will be
Being consistent with the format used for responses is good practice. When designing your survey keep in mind that when analysing the data single selection radio buttons are easier to analyse than multiple selection check boxes. If a radio response can be used do not use a check box.
16. Inform the respondent as to how much time the survey will take to complete
If the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions then respondent drop can increase. It is good practice to indicate how long the survey is likely to take so that the participants can choose the best time to complete the survey.
17. Advise the respondents of the survey end date
Encourage respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise respondents as to the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.
18. Trial the survey
Before publishing a live survey publish a small pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to ensure that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.
19. Before publishing the survey check the survey several times
Carefully check and then check again that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If practical get a colleague to check the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.
20. Thank your respondents
Respondents invest their time when completing surveys and should therefore be thanked at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as a prize draw or reward.
To get started there are numerous survey software websites to choose from.
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