1. Short and Concrete
How many surveys do you run into in A SINGLE DAY? A lot. So people will not have time for long, boring, distracting surveys. Make your questions short and concrete – meaning – stop beating around the bush! You do not need to ask how their day is going nor if they are having a good time, do not waste your questions. Only ask if necessary, and keep it short and straight to the point.
2. Use Active Voice
Which means, stop with the passive voice unless necessary! If your questions are confusing, you get inaccurate answers, so start asking your questions in a CLEAR way. “Did you receive the right order?” sounds much better than “Was the right order delivered to you?”, so keep it that way.
3. One Question at a Time
“Do you think your salary is good enough and will you get married if you get a raise and how many babies will you have?” Big no no. To have a clear question, it is vital to have only ONE main point. Split your question into questions if you have more than one main idea needing to be answered. It makes the options for your answer less vague and the information collected much more solid.
4. Don’t Try to Lead your Respondents
Use neutral questions. You want their honest opinions, and that means choosing the right questions for non-biased answers. “Do you think Global Warming should be neglected?” and “Should we concentrate all our attention to Global Warming instead of every other issue going on?” will get very different responses.
5. Use Scaling for more Accurate Answers
Have you ever tried a dish that is not amazing, but is not bad nor plain either? Exactly. Not every thing is simply good or bad, or average. Scale your options well to get the most accurate results from your respondents. We offer many different scaling options, so why not use them to their utmost potential?
6. Yes/No Questions limit your result potential
Yes/No questions might be convenient and fast, but they lack depth. Do you like our service? Maybe it is not horrible, but it is not the most amazing service either? You are cutting your respondents’ choices short with these questions, and you will get rather shallow results with not much space to improve. Try out our amazing options for question types and collect richer and more in depth data.
7. Logical Structure
“Do you like Blue?” “How many Grapes do you think should be able to fit in one Bowl?” – have a logical order for your questions! In a way, your respondents should be able to expect the next question, and there should be a smooth flow to your questionnaire. This also helps keeping you on track with the questions as well as keeping your respondents’ focus. If they stop for a second out of confusion, you risk losing their precious attention span.
8. Consider your Audience
Who is your target audience? Is your language appropriate? Are they interested in certain topics? How to keep their focus? What would they gain by providing you their answers? These questions hold a significant role in creating the perfect survey, and should never be ignored. If you speak their language, they will speak yours.
9. Make Sure it’s Mobile Friendly
Let’s keep up with the technology. People spend hours on their phones per day, and you should make sure that your survey is Mobile-Friendly. By not paying attention to the Mobile platform, you are losing out on a huge amount of important and valuable data and information. Fortunately for you, our Mobile Preview can take care of this!
10. Do a Test Drive before Going Live
Get people including yourself to try the survey before sending it out. Small mistakes can be made unintentionally, and testing your own survey helps making sure that it is foolproof and appealing to your target audience. Over-prepared is always better than under-prepared for success.
