You could be collecting general feedback, performing evaluations, or assessing an event’s success, but no matter what the design of your survey is going to be a huge first step.
Designing a survey is a lot like doing the groundwork for a research paper; before you look for answers, you need to plan out what your questions are. You also need to seriously think about the logistics of the question phrasing and how many questions to ask.
Keep Your Language Simple
Since your audience members are not likely to be professional market researchers or intimately familiar with all details of your subject, you should keep your language simple and clear. The main object of designing survey questions is to get accurate information from a general pool of individuals, not to trick or confuse them. So, try to avoid industry jargon and not go overboard with too much detail.
Limit Your Answer Categories
You will want to keep the answer options simple as well, so limit your answer categories. You do not want to overwhelm your respondents with too many possible answer choices, so stick to six or fewer options since studies suggest that this is the ideal number for keeping people motivated and engaged. The easier you make it for people to answer, the more likely you are to receive accurate and ample data.
Simplicity really matters when it comes to survey design and market research best practices. If you create a solid template for your surveys, it will be that much easier to replicate success over and over again. Otherwise, you may fall victim to lost data due to uninterested target groups or confused respondents. That is both a waste of time and resources.
