Guidelines to Design A Successful Survey

It is a known fact, now that surveys are powerful tools, with regards to evaluating client opinions, evaluating the success of products in the market and research the current trends in the market. When formulating a survey, you have to consider a few things in order to design a successful survey. Among the most important things when creating a survey questionnaire is planning for the task. The following aspects will help you as you strive to create a compelling online survey, which will provide you with clear and actionable data for your business.

Define your Objectives

While planning for your survey, the most important thing to do is define the objective for your survey. This should primarily be guided by the problem you are 6 trying to address in the business. Additionally, the objectives of a survey may be affected by the type of survey you are formulating. To begin with, you should try to understand the kind of actions you would like to take after getting the responses. Basically, each survey should have the least possible objectives, for it to command clear and precise responses from the responses.

Outline your Survey

After defining the objectives behind your survey, you should now proceed to outline the survey. To properly outline the survey, you should use this checklist.

·     • Does the survey have a proper introduction? A good introduction should explain the purpose of the survey, its duration as well as the incentives for completing the questionnaire in a clear and precise manner.

• Does your survey start with questions to select the right respondents for the survey? At the beginning of the survey questionnaire, you should have questions to ascertain whether the person answering the survey is a suitable respondent.

• Do the questions proceed from general to more specific? This is the best way to arrange questions on the questionnaire.

• Does the survey have demographic questions at the end?

• Have you used questions that are relevant to the survey objectives?

To design a successful survey, you should try to conform to this checklist.

Draft the Questions

While writing the questions down, you should ensure that they adhere to certain specifications. Basically, the questions should avoid acronyms, jargon and terminologies that the respondents may not be aware of. This is to mean that the questions should be concise and simple to understand.

Once done with the questionnaire, you should review it and pre-test it to ensure that it is in line with the objectives of the survey and that it is well structured to give you the right information. To design a successful survey, you should ensure that it will take an average of 7 minutes to complete.