Writing a survey can seem like a walk in the park. After all, how hard could it be to write a decent question and set of responses to that question?<\/p>\n
Honestly, it’s harder than it might seem. Here are some tips for how to write a great question.
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First things first: what is the primary purpose for your survey? This is where it all starts. If you can focus this, half your work is done. I’ve sat in client meetings where a myriad of purposes were presented, and we had to work at determining what was the most important thing they wanted to learn from the questionnaire. It’s entirely natural to see writing a questionnaire as the opportunity to have an in-depth discussion with your respondent, so to speak. However, the longer the questionnaire, the less likely your respondent is to make it all the way through.<\/p>\n
Once you have your primary purpose identified, it’s time to brainstorm the questions. This might seem contradictory, but let the sky be the limit here. List everything you can possibly think to ask.<\/p>\n
Now that you have your brainstorm list of questions, it’s time to go back to that primary purpose and eliminate anything that doesn’t meet the purpose. Next, did you ask the same thing multiple times? There are times when this is useful, but a basic survey should eliminate redundancy as much as possible. You want to keep this questionnaire as straight-forward as possible.<\/p>\n