Designing effective surveys

Surveys seem so simple, but they rarely are in real life. Slightly vary the types of questions and response options in your survey, and you can seriously impact the quality and value of your survey’s results. Here is a quick guide to the essentials and is a great way to get started.

1. Define the purpose of the survey

The survey’s purpose should be a clear, attainable, and relevant goal. For example, you might want to understand why customer engagement is dropping off during the middle of the sales process.

Your goal could then be something like: “I want to understand the key factors that cause engagement to dip at the middle of the sales process, including both internal and external elements.”

2. Make every question count

You’re building your survey questionnaire to obtain important insights, so every question should play a direct role in hitting that target.

Make sure each question adds value and drives survey responses that relate directly to your research goals. For example, if your participant’s precise age or home state is relevant to your results, go ahead and ask. If not, save yourself and your respondents some time and skip it.

3. Keep it short and simple

Respondents are less likely to complete long surveys or surveys that bounce around haphazardly from topic to topic. Make sure your survey follows a logical order and takes a reasonable amount of time to complete.

4. Ask direct questions

Vaguely worded survey questions confuse respondents and make your resulting data less useful. Be as specific as possible, and strive for clear and precise language that will make your survey questions easy to answer. It can be helpful to mention a specific situation or behavior rather than a general tendency. That way you focus the respondent on the facts of their life rather than asking them to consider abstract beliefs or ideas.

5. Ask one question at a time

Although it’s important to keep your survey as short and sweet as possible, that doesn’t mean doubling up on questions. Trying to pack too much into a single question can lead to confusion and inaccuracies in the responses.

6. Avoid leading and biased questions

Although you don’t intend them to, certain words and phrases can introduce bias into your questions or point the respondent in the direction of a particular answer.

7. Speak your respondent's language

Create surveys that use language and terminology that your respondents will understand. Keep the language as plain as possible, avoid technical jargon and keep sentences short. However, beware of oversimplifying a question to the point that its meaning changes.

8. Use response scales whenever possible

Response scales capture the direction and intensity of attitudes, providing rich data. In contrast, categorical or binary response options, such as true/false or yes/no response options, generally produce less informative data.

9. Avoid using grids or matrices for responses

Grids or matrices of answers demand a lot more thinking from your respondent than a scale or multiple choice question. They need to understand and weigh up multiple items at once, and oftentimes they don’t fill in grids accurately or according to their true feelings.

10. Rephrase yes/no questions if possible

Many yes/no questions can be reworked by including phrases such as “How much,” “How often,” or “How likely.” Make this change whenever possible and include a response scale for richer data.

11. Start with the straightforward stuff

Ease your respondent into the survey by asking easy questions at the start of your questionnaire, then moving on to more complex or thought-provoking elements once they’re engaged in the process. This is especially valuable if you need to cover any potentially sensitive topics in your survey. Never put sensitive questions at the start of the questionnaire where they’re more likely to feel off-putting.

12. Use unbalanced scales with care

Unbalanced response scales and poorly worded questions can mislead respondents.

13. Consider adding incentives

To increase the number of responses, incentives — discounts, offers, gift cards, or sweepstakes — can prove helpful.

14. Take your survey for a test drive

Share your survey with at least five people, so that they can test your survey to help you catch and correct problems before you distribute it.