Katy Dickinson

How to Survey

Introduction

This is an updated external-to-Sun version of a web page I first created five years ago to bring together in one location key information and resources for how to conduct surveys. The initial audience for this information was the Sun Sigma (Six Sigma) professional community.

How do I know about surveys and data collection? I was certified as a Sun Sigma Black Belt in 2002 and have been serving as a Master Black Belt since 2002. I was also in one of the last classes that Dr. Deming taught on statistical management methods, in 1993.

Key Questions

1. Why survey?

A survey is one of many good ways to collect information from customers. It may or may not be the best way for your situation. Have you considered other options such as field studies, baseline research, interviews, and focus groups? Many customer groups get surveyed over and over and get very tired of questions: what do you know about the data already collected from the target group?

2. What are the rules?

Information protection, security, and privacy are some policy and legal areas to consider before developing your survey. Local laws about sweepstakes and contests also need to be considered for some survey incentives. If you work for a company, there may be different policies for internal corporate surveys and external customer surveys.

3. What questions?

Developing survey content is as much an art as it is a science. How do you form questions so that the results can be usefully analyzed? What will you do with the answer to each question? How many questions will your target audience answer before abandoning the survey? Is the way you ask the question clear to people from other contexts and countries? An excellent survey takes time and testing to perfect. If you are new to surveying, consider asking a consultant expert for support.

4. What tool?

If you are not having someone else create your survey, there are a number of tools available to you, details are available below under Tools and Services.

Tools and Services

• Sample Size Calculator, Creative Research Systems web site tool
"This Sample Size Calculator is presented as a public service of Creative Research Systems. You can use it to determine how many people you need to interview in order to get results that reflect the target population as precisely as needed. You can also find the level of precision you have in an existing sample."
• 3-way Percent Calculators
• Web-based surveys are a best practice. When I create a web based survey, I do not use a third party survey tool. I work with a Sun Engineer to create and test my survey using HTML, PERL, and CGI scripts. For those to whom these are not easily available, here are three survey tool companies which have been recommended to me. Before starting to use a third party survey tool, be sure to consider who owns your survey data, how the privacy of your data is protected, and whether the tool company charges for larger numbers of responses.
• Zoomerang "Create custom web-based surveys and get rapid results. Start using the #1 online survey tool today!"
• VTSurvey "A web-based tool which enables end users to autonomously create and run online surveys, feedback or registration forms."
• SurveyMonkey.com "Intelligent survey software for primates of all species. SurveyMonkey has a single purpose: to enable anyone to create professional online surveys quickly and easily."

Reading

• "Ask Them Yourself" - How to survey your customers on the cheap, By Ellyn Spragins, FORTUNE - Small Business - Innovation, From the Dec. 2005 Issue of FSB
• "Keep Online Surveys Short" by (former Sun Distinguished Engineer) Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox, February 2, 2004
  "To ensure high response rates and avoid misleading survey results, keep your surveys short and ensure that your questions are well written and easy to answer."
• "Raising Your Return on Innovation Investment" By Alexander Kandybin and Martin Kihn, Booz Allen Hamilton, 2004
  "There is also is a flaw in the methods by which most companies go about developing new products. Focus groups and surveys elicit consumer opinions, but people can't know what they don't know."
• "Listening to the Voice of the Customer" by Mark Federman, Chief Strategist, McLuhan Management Studies, McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, University of Toronto - November 28, 2001 (9 pages, PDF format)
• "Getting the truth into workplace surveys" by Palmer Morrell-Samuels, "Harvard Business Review", February 2002 - Reprint R0202K
• How to Conduct Your Own Survey by Priscilla Salant, Don A. Dillman. John Wiley & Sons (1994) ISBN: 0471012734
• An alternative to the survey:
  • "Field Studies: The Best Tool to Discover User Needs" by Jared M. Spool, Originally published: March 13, 2007
    "While techniques, such as focus groups, usability tests, and surveys, can lead to valuable insights, the most powerful tool in the toolbox is the 'field study'. Field studies get the team immersed in the environment of their users and allow them to observe critical details for which there is no other way of discovering."
  • "Risks of Quantitative Studies" by (former Sun Distinguished Engineer) Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox, March 1, 2004
    "Number fetishism leads usability studies astray by focusing on statistical analyses that are often false, biased, misleading, or overly narrow. Better to emphasize insights and qualitative research."

See my 1 May 2008 blog entry How to Survey, Part 2 (Best Practices) for more.

Posted at 04:00PM Apr 16, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |