14 Ways To Conduct A Perfect Survey On Your Own

People love taking surveys. They love answering questions about themselves, especially if it’s information that other people will find valuable. Plus, surveys are one of the best ways to get feedback and honest opinions from others.

Unfortunately, surveys can be tricky to conduct especially if you’re doing them without help from a professional or any training in survey design. But with a little know-how and planning, you can create a reliable survey with plenty of respondents and trustworthy responses.

Here’s some advice I’ve gathered over the years (and through many hours of reading blogs on data science) on how to do just that:

Takeaways
1. Clearly define the purpose and objectives of your survey.
2. Choose the appropriate survey method based on your target audience and research goals.
3. Design clear and concise survey questions that are easy to understand.
4. Use a mix of question types (e.g., multiple-choice, open-ended) to gather diverse insights.
5. Consider the order and flow of your survey questions to maintain respondent engagement.
6. Pilot test your survey with a small group to identify any issues or improvements needed.
7. Utilize skip logic and branching to customize the survey experience for respondents.
8. Keep the survey length reasonable and avoid overwhelming respondents with too many questions.
9. Ensure the survey is visually appealing and user-friendly, with clear instructions and formatting.
10. Offer incentives or rewards to encourage participation and increase response rates.
11. Keep data privacy and confidentiality in mind, and assure respondents of their anonymity.
12. Regularly monitor and track survey responses to identify trends and patterns.
13. Use data analysis techniques to interpret the survey results and draw meaningful insights.
14. Act upon the findings of your survey and communicate the results to stakeholders as appropriate.

1. Design Carefully And Think Seriously About The Order Of Your Questions.

If your survey is going to be short, make sure that you put the easier questions at the start and the tougher ones later on. A participant can only take so much of a challenge in one sitting. You don’t want them to drop out halfway through because they were overwhelmed by your questions and data collection methods.

It’s also important to think about how you structure your survey questions themselves. For example, asking someone if they like peanut butter sandwiches instead of asking them if they like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches makes all the difference in how many people will answer “yes” to both inquiries.

The former question is broad; it could mean almost anything! The latter question is specific; it means exactly what it says: do you like peanut butter with jelly?

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2. Start With A Screen-Out Question

A screen-out question is a question that helps you identify people who are not eligible to take your survey. Doing so reduces the number of people who complete your survey.

For example: If you want to survey how many hours college students spend watching TV and playing video games every week, but only want students from one college to take the survey (for example, if you’re conducting this for a class project).

Then you could ask them what school they go to before asking them any other questions. This will help you identify students at different schools and eliminate those who don’t go there from taking the rest of your questions.

3. Use Closed-Ended Questions

Closed-ended questions are better than open-ended questions. When you ask a closed-ended question, the respondent is forced to answer with one of several options. This makes it easier for you to understand the response, and it also helps your team know how to answer similar future questions.

Open-ended questions can be difficult for both the respondents and your team because they often require interpretation for someone else to understand what was meant by them (e.g., “What do you like most about our company?”).

In addition, there’s no way for you or your team members to compare data from different surveys easily if they all include open-ended questions (or variations on them).

4. Think About The Response Format, If Applicable

• Think about the response format, if applicable. If you want to limit your respondents’ options, use multiple choice or rating scale formats. If you want to get a specific response from each respondent, use fill-in-the-blank formats instead.

• Consider how much time it will take for each question within your survey and what kind of responses they might require. For example, asking someone to list their favorite movies takes longer than asking them which movie they last saw in theaters.

However, the former is likely to yield more detailed results than the latter which may be more useful depending on your goal with this data.

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5. Use Well-Designed Open-Ended Questions Sparingly Usually To Ask For Comments Or Opinions.

Open-ended questions are great for getting feedback and opinions, but be careful not to overuse them. If you’re asking an open-ended question, there should be a reason why you’re doing that instead of something more specific.

For example, if you want to know what your customers think about your product or service and have a 100% positive response rate from their answers, maybe it’s time for some changes in the product or service itself!

6. Ask Leading Or Biased Questions Only If You Want To Get Biased Answers

Your survey should be asking questions that will help you get the most accurate data possible. It is important to remember that you are asking these questions to obtain specific information, so it’s important to not ask leading or biased questions only if you want to get biased answers.

Leading and biased questions are used in surveys to encourage specific answers from respondents. They can also be used as a tool for getting more data from respondents because they force them into answering with a “yes” or “no”.

The problem with using these types of questions is that they can skew the results of your survey and make it less reliable.

7. Avoid Asking Respondents To Perform Complex Tasks In The Survey

Avoid asking respondents to perform complex tasks in the survey. This is important, because respondents may not be able to complete the task accurately or efficiently. It’s also a good idea not to ask them questions that are irrelevant or unrelated to the topic of your survey. 

For example, if you’re conducting a survey about customer satisfaction and end up asking them their favorite color or what their favorite flavor of ice cream is, they might become confused and even annoyed at having been asked such an odd question so early on in the process!

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8. Pre-Test Your Survey Before Launching It Out Into The Field

You’ve already started thinking about your survey: you know what questions you want to ask, and you probably have a good idea of how you want the survey to look. Now it’s time to take it one step further and pre-test the survey before launching it into the field.

 A pre-test is an important part of any research project because it enables researchers to find out if the questions will work for their audience before they begin collecting data.

To conduct a successful pre-test, two main things need to happen: 1) get feedback on how respondents feel about each question, and 2) determine if there are any problems with anything else in the survey (for example formatting).

9. Decide How Many Respondents To Include In Your Sample, Based On A Margin Of Error And Confidence Level

If you want to be able to say with a certain degree of confidence that your results are accurate, there’s some math involved. Take the margin of error. It represents the range in which your results could fall, even if every single person in your sample responded truthfully and completely (a big “if”).

The smaller this number is, the more confident you can be that your data is accurate. The next thing you’ll need to know is what percentage of people need to respond to the survey to represent the full population this is called the confidence level.

For example, if 10% of people participate in a survey with a 95% confidence level, there’s only a 5% chance that it will show different results than those found by surveying 100% of those same folks (or more).

10. Decide How You Will Select Respondents From Your Sampling Frame 

Once you’ve decided on the type of survey you want to conduct and have a good idea of what data you’re looking for, it’s time to determine how many people will be included in your sample.

The size of your survey depends on several factors. These include:

• The type of information you are collecting (quantitative or qualitative)
• The amount of time available for data collection (and analysis)
• Whether the results will be used for general decision-making or specific applications, like marketing campaigns.

11. Attempt To Contact Every Member Of Your Sample Once, Twice, And Sometimes Even Three Times 

When you’re conducting a survey, it’s important to attempt to contact every single member of your sample once, twice, and sometimes even three times as appropriate for that sample.

Not only will these efforts help ensure that you have a larger return rate than if you just sent out one or two reminders, but they can also be used as “confirmation bias” checks on the results from your initial survey.

If you’ve done everything right up until now, then there shouldn’t be any surprises; however, if someone does not respond at all after being contacted multiple times (or responds with what seems like an unusual answer), then something might have gone wrong with either the sampling process or how you asked questions in your survey responses.

If this happens more than once or twice across multiple samples, however (and especially if it happens frequently), then there may be something wrong with how people are responding during surveys generally.

Possibly due either to poor wording choices or bias caused by other factors outside of our control – which means we’d need additional steps taken before continuing onward toward publication:

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12. Make Sure You Say Thank You At The End, And Perhaps Offer An Incentive For Completing The Survey 

By the end of a survey, you want to make sure that your participants are aware that their responses are important to you. Thank them for participating and let them know what will happen with their answers. You can also offer an incentive if one has been offered in exchange for taking the survey.

To make sure that you get responses from all of your respondents, it’s good practice to ask them how they would like to be contacted: email address or phone number? This way, if someone doesn’t respond via email after a few days (which often happens), then you have another way of contacting them directly.

13. Consider When To Close A Survey

You should also consider when to close a survey if using an online tool. There is no downside to keeping it open longer than expected if needed to reach your goal.

I recommend setting the end date for a survey as far in advance of your deadline as possible this will allow you time to get enough responses without having to rush through any last-minute changes or updates.

If you are using an online tool that allows users access based on their membership (e.g., LinkedIn), you can lock accounts once they’ve taken the survey so that nonmembers cannot access it at all (this is what we do at SurveyMonkey).

This helps prevent people from taking multiple surveys from different sources within a short period which would skew results by inflating response rates and potentially giving rise to false conclusions about populations represented by each group.

14. Use Skip Patterns When Appropriate; They Can Be Used In Two Ways

• When you want to skip a question: If you have a question that will come up later in the survey, but you don’t want it to be asked right away, then use skip patterns. This way, it won’t be asked until all of the questions before are answered.

• When you want to skip a section of the survey: Skip patterns can also be used when there is more than one section on your survey and you would like certain sections skipped over automatically.

You should use this option with caution because if someone skips through their answers quickly enough they could accidentally get past these sections if they don’t read carefully enough.

• When you want to skip a page of the survey: Another way that you can use skip patterns is when there are multiple pages in your survey and some people may not want all of them to be read aloud or displayed at once (this is particularly important for those who are visually impaired).

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Final Thoughts

The tips above are a guide to usability testing, but you can modify them for your own needs. Usability testing is all about engaging users in honest conversation to learn more about their experience with your product.

Usability testing doesn’t need to be expensive or complex, as long as you’re clear on what questions you want to be answered before going into the research phase. Even if you aren’t able to conduct formal lab studies or hire experts.

Further Reading

Here are some additional resources for further reading on survey creation and questionnaire design:

How to Create a Survey: A comprehensive guide on creating surveys, covering topics such as formulating questions, selecting survey methods, and analyzing results.

14 Tips for Designing an Effective Research Questionnaire Survey: This article provides valuable tips and insights on designing research questionnaires that yield reliable and meaningful data.

How to Conduct a Survey: Learn the best practices for conducting surveys, including planning, survey distribution, and data analysis.

People Also Ask

What Is A Survey?

A survey is a way to get feedback from your customers and potential customers. Surveys can be conducted in person, over the phone, or online, and they can be done at any point during the customer-company relationship.

What’s great about surveys is that they’re a low-cost way to get valuable information about what you’re doing right and what you could do better.

What Is A Questionnaire?

A questionnaire is a list of questions used by researchers to collect information from people to study something. This is often done through surveys and interviews, but it can be done in other ways too.

What Is An Interview?

An interview is when one person asks another person questions about something they are interested in or know about so that they can learn more about it themselves! It’s sort of like an interrogation, except there are no torture devices involved (usually).

What Is The Purpose Of Conducting A Survey?

A survey is an important research method used to collect data from the target population. It can be used to gather information about attitudes, opinions, and experiences of people. The results are then analyzed using various statistical methods such as frequency tables, graphs, and charts.

What Are The Different Types Of Surveys?

There are two types of surveys: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative surveys involve asking questions that require respondents to give answers in their own words or phrases.

These types of surveys are often used in market research to find out what consumers think about products or services offered by businesses.

Quantitative surveys use numbers instead of words to get answers from respondents. They are usually conducted over the phone or online with closed-ended questions that require a single answer such as yes or no; agree or disagree; etc.

 Most online surveys use this type of question format because they are easy for respondents to understand without having to read long paragraphs to answer questions correctly.

How Do I Make Sure That My Survey Results Are Accurate And Valid?

The key to making sure that your survey results are accurate and valid is by asking relevant questions that will produce accurate and valid responses. If you’re not sure what it means for results to be accurate or valid, don’t worry we’ll get into that later!

What If I Want To Create An Online Survey? Should I Use Google Forms Or Surveymonkey?

Both Google Forms and SurveyMonkey are great tools for creating surveys online. However, they both have different strengths and weaknesses that might make one more appropriate than the other depending on what type of information you want to collect from respondents.

How Many People Should I Survey?

We recommend that you always survey at least 100 people. The more people you survey, the more accurate your results will be. However, it’s important to keep in mind that surveys should not take too much time.

If you have a lot of questions and a high number of respondents, it can easily take more than an hour to complete your survey! So make sure that your questions are concise and only ask what is necessary to achieve your goals (i.e., don’t ask for unnecessary detail).

Why Should I Conduct A Survey?

A survey is a great way to gain insight into your customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors. Conducting a survey will help you understand what drives the buying behavior of your target audience and how you can improve their experience with your business.

What Kind Of People Should I Ask To Participate In My Survey?

You must choose the right participants for your survey. The best surveys are conducted with people who represent your target audience, so they can give you valuable insights into what drives their buying behavior.

How Do I Find Participants Who Match My Target Audience?

There are several ways to find qualified participants for your survey: use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter; post on LinkedIn; set up an email marketing campaign, or use paid advertising platforms like Google Adwords or Facebook Ads Manager.

How Many People Should I Ask To Participate In My Survey?

The number of participants needed for a successful survey depends on what kind of data you’re trying to collect (e.g., statistical significance), but as a rule of thumb, we recommend between 100 and 500 responses per question (1,000 total).