Above all, your questionnaire should be as short as possible. When drafting your
questionnaire, make a mental distinction between what is essential to know, what would be
useful to know and what would be unnecessary. Retain the former, keep the useful to a
minimum and discard the rest. If the question is not important enough to include in your
report, it probably should be eliminated.
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Survey recipients may have a variety of backgrounds so use simple language. For
example, "What is the frequency of your automotive travel to your parents'
residents in the last 30 days?" is better understood as, "About how many times
in the last 30 days have you driven to your parent's home?"
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Relax your grammatical standards if the questions sound too formal. For example, the
word "who" is appropriate in many instances when "whom" is technical
correct.
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Write questions that everyone will understand in the same way. Don't assume that
everyone has the same understanding of the facts or a common basis of knowledge. Identify
even commonly used abbreviations to be certain that everyone understands.
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Start the survey with questions that are likely to sound interesting and attract the
respondents' attention. Save the questions that might be difficult or threatening for
later. Voicing questions in the third person can be less threatening than questions voiced
in the second question. For example, ask: "How do your colleagues feel about
management?" rather than "How do you feel about management?"
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Leading questions demand a specific response. For example: the question "Which day
of the month is best for the newly established company-wide monthly meeting?" leads
respondents to pick a date without first determining if they even want another
meeting.
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Respondents can easily be confused deciphering the meaning of a question that uses two
negative words.
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When the question requires respondents to use a rating scale, mediate the scale so that
there is room for both extremes.
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If the list of answer categories is long and unfamiliar, it is difficult for
respondents to evaluate all of them. Keep the list of choices short.
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Some questions involve concepts that are difficult for many people to understand.
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People's memories are increasingly unreliable as you ask them to recall events farther
and farther back in time. You will get far more accurate information from people if you
ask, "About how many times in the last month have you gone out and seen a movie
in a movie theater or drive-in?" rather than, "About how many times last year
did you go out and see a movie in a movie theater or drive-in?"
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Most questionnaires rely on questions with a fixed number of response categories from
which respondents select their answers. These are useful because the respondents know
clearly the purpose of the question and are limited to a set of choices where one answer
is right for them.
An open-ended question is a written response. For example: "If you do not want a
company picnic, please explain why". If there are an excessive number of written
response questions, it reduces the quality and attention the respondents give to the
answers.
However, InfoPoll allows you to use a wide variety of other types of questions.
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The issues raised in one question can influence how people think about subsequent
questions. It is good to ask a general question and then ask more specific questions. For
example, you should avoid asking a series of questions about a free banking service and
then question about the most important factors in selecting a bank.
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It is better to identify a problem during the pretest than after you have published the
survey. Before sending a survey to a target audience, send it out as a test to a small
number of people. After they have completed the survey, brainstorm with them to see if
they had problems answering any questions. It would help if they explained what the
question meant to them and whether it was valid to the questionnaire or not.
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Some people discard an electronic message based entirely on its subject or sender. You
should consider other titles that will pique the interest of the recipients. Here are
examples of survey names that might be successful in getting attention:
