Online Tech Tips has an article titled How to create an online survey for free using Google Docs 

While I applaud the resourcefulness of this approach I can’t help thinking that it may be a little under powered for this kind of purpose.

In a nut shell the “Google Survey’ is using the Google Docs Spreadsheet function. It appears that there is some function that allows an online form to collect data in your spreadsheet. This came as a surpirise to me as I have used Google Spreadsheets for collorobnration before and had no idea that you could create a form for this purpose.

If you are looking for a free survey tool there are more suitable options that will offer greater functionality, Survey Gizmo is one that springs. For most small basic online surveys this should suit most needs.

Jason Lee Miller writes in “Twitter: A Real Time Pulse Of Customer Satisfaction” how Twitter can provide a real time insight into customer satisfaction.

The example given is off using the Twitter network in order to gain insight into how a company may be performing by asking for company recommendations.

The challenge here I think is to be able to cut through the noise and research some sort of definitive consensus on a view. Something that I think would be difficult. What is most likely to prevail are those kind of shoot from the hip responses. Nothing that I would base any serious decisions on.

One of the benefits of online surveys is that you can make them as long as you like without exhausting Amazon quantities of paper. As you can imagine this benefit can quickly become a curse. I completed a survey recently which took over 25 minutes to complete asking my opinion about a range of software options.

In my mind long surveys show an inherent misunderstanding and disrespect to respondents and should be avoided at all costs. In all likelihood by the time the respondent is halfway through the survey they are likely to either give up or quickly whiz through the survey in order to claim whatever incentive is available.

You can imagine the effect of the long survey on your data quality. In most cases you might as well disregard the questions towards the end as the impact of survey fatigue takes its hold on the respondents judgement and overall attitude towards your survey. In addition your survey abandonment rate will increase dramatically.

So, the questions is raised – How long is too long for your online survey (and any other survey for that matter).  Mark Kupferman has come up with four key factors which I think are worth considering for anyone developing a survey.

1. What does the respondent get for taking the survey?
2. How interesting is the survey topic to the respondent?
3. How much fun is it to complete the survey?
4. What impact will completing the survey have on the respondent?

I have added one more of my own.

1. What happens to the survey results?

I have expanded on Mark’s factors below as well as my own. Read the rest of this entry »

Seth Godin has five tips for better online surveys. One of the things that strikes me about these five tips is the underlying rule that should guide all rules for designing surveys is “Respect your respondent”.

One of the things that I have noticed more and more is how long and tedious some of the surveys that I have recently completed have been. When designing your survey you need to keep your respondent in mind all the time. Their time is valuable and you need to respect this. I have found the best way to acheive this is to imagine that you yourself are being invited to take the survey.

Over the last few weeks I have been invited to take part in a number of surveys on a number of websites I have visited. The survey service is run by Crowd Science.

What Crowd Science seeks to do is to bridge the knowledge gap between traditioanl website analytic tools and your website visitors. This is achieved by asking your website visitors a series of questions with a core focus on geographic and demographics.

There is nothing really new here, website surveys seeking to understand the profile of visitors have been around for some time. What seems to make Crowd Science different is the ease of installation and reporting functionality.

This morning I signed up for an account and had the survey operating in under five minutes. The basic account is free and once you place the survey tag onto your site the survey is working. While it is too early to say whether or not Crowd Science is a useful tool I look forward ot posting a full review of this promising and useful looking service.