Health Survey!

You know what works better than an incentive? For me, anyway?

Exclamation points! The enthusiasm is contagious! I can’t wait to click the link and take the survey.
Of course, I’ll bet the staid researchers who programmed the survey itself aren’t so excited about it, though.

Oh my gosh! They totally are! This is going to be the [...]

Whoa, Two Months?

Crap, I know I’ve been busy, but this is ridiculous.
Still fighting the good fight, but haven’t had time to write about (or even look at) much research lately. I did catch this grid a couple days ago, and I think it’s worth throwing up and looking at, not because it’s a particularly terrible example (it’s [...]

Harris Thinks Outside The Box

Not in a good way, though:

It’s always possible this was a Firefox-only problem, but I (a) doubt it and (b) don’t think that makes this OK either, actually.
It’s not eggregious, of course, just … off, and as such, distracting. Don’t distract your respondents; don’t make them take time out from thinking about their answers to [...]

Consistency is Key

Of the online polls I see regularly, Harris Interactive seems to be the best of the lot. They actually did something I thought was particularly good in a piece of research I saw today, but of course I’m going to post on the thing they did today that I didn’t like as much.
First, I was [...]

How Do You Tell if Your Survey Design Has Problems?

Wouldn’t it be better to extensively test our research before it goes into the field?

Do Your Questions Still Make Sense?

Unsurprisingly, I’m sure, I do pretty severe edits on research questions that are put in front of me. It’s not uncommon for me to go back to a client with a questionnaire that contains about 30% fewer words than the one they submitted.
Unfortunately, I’m also used to hearing words like this: “Sorry, we have to [...]

How Many Times A Week Does The Milkman Visit Your Home?

Really?
I wonder why they left off 300, 1200, 2400, and 9600 baud.
Seriously, it looks like broadband penetration is at about 57% right now, but it’s 90% among active internet users, which should mean that only about 1 of 10 people who see this question are actually using dialup. Is it really that important to know [...]