Hot answers tagged surveys
22
No, just use the label for what is expected. It's easier to understand and clearer to the user if you use fewer words. Think of a registration form:
Enter your e-mail address:
or
E-mail:
From a user experience perspective, the more you cut down on the number of words, the better. Key words are preferred, since they convey the actual meaning to what you ...
16
Place demographic questions at the end of the survey. If you place them at the beginning, you will induce a phenomenon called stereotype threat.
Stereotype threat says that if you remind someone of a stereotyped attribute of themselves, it will impact their performance even if they don't believe that stereotype. For example, suppose a girl has heard a ...
12
Standard Progressive Disclosure should start at the simplest, least intrusive information first. Maybe even consider allowing users to put off answering some parts of the form (this will probably reduce completion rate of the "extra" fields but increase the completion rate of the start of the survey). But if you must do it all in one go, I'd generally ...
11
In my experience, I have gotten better results by combining the survey with the action of unsubscribing.
If a user goes to the trouble of unsubscribing from something, they really want to, and are having some sort of negative experience that they want to alleviate. To retain as much goodwill as possible with the customer, let them do what they want -- ...
11
I have read up on this a bit, and it seems that my answer will contradict some of the things that have already been mentioned. My sources are all academic, and as such reflect the use of on-line surveys for conducting experiments. Feel free to read the sources that I link to, and draw your own conclusions. I mention some peripheral work as it relates to ...
11
This article cites some studies about it:
Some recent research in the Journal of Business and Psychology
reveals that placing demographic items at the beginning of a survey
increases the response rate to those items in comparison to
demographic items placed at the end. And more importantly, it did not
affect scores on the three noncognitive ...
8
The reason why you think they are unnecessary is:
a) because you are too familiar with the form, and
b) overuse of the same verb - 'Enter'.
For someone who has never seen the form before, the verb can be a vital clue as to what is expected of them in terms of typing a response, or selecting an option.
In order to reduce the repetitive nature and ...
7
Are you asking users to fill in text boxes and write long narratives? If so, this is a high commitment task. Instead, make answering your survey a low commitment task by:
Shortening the length of the survey overall--could you limit it to one or two questions, varying questions by user? This would increase participation overall and you could still get all ...
7
Given sufficiently high traffic, you'll be able to get n responses in as short a time as you like.
But, that sample is likely to be biased in time and/or geography, especially if you get them within an hour or so.
If you only collect responses between 11am and 1pm on a Monday, London time, then you'll be catching a bunch of people from the UK who check ...
7
Don't.
Users have goals. Let's say you want to buy a hairdryer. Let's suppose you have some vague idea on what kind of hairdryer you want.
You type into Google: "Hairdryer shop"
Let's suppose your site comes up first (or second)
Instead of diving into hairdryer specifics, there's a popup asking you, "hey, you seem to be new here, we've just opened this ...
6
Abstract: surveys are annoying your users, and sample bias is worse than sample error.
A large sample size isn't as important as an unbiased sample selection.
Standard deviation decreases with 1/sqrt(N), so doubling sample size will decrease the sampling error by roughly 30%.
So if you need to bother 1000 people to figure out 76% +/- 6% want or are OK ...
6
You could indicate under the selected response the actual value - as in the image below, so that users get immediate (but non blocking) feedback in-place for the response they just selected.
If users meant to be very Satisfied they will likely spot the mistake and correct it
Also you might try not putting the header in inverse colours as that slightly ...
5
Request their email onsite, so that you can send the survey link directly to their inbox.
Why should they bother? Make sure to preface the survey with a paragraph about how much you value their feedback, stating explicitly that you want to learn how to deliver a better service to them personally
Make all questions optional and make sure the user is aware ...
5
Make it fun to fill out the survey.
Most surveys are DEATHLY DULL. I don't know why, but somehow people think this is acceptable. Meanwhile, there are a ton of "What Mad Men Character Are You?" quiz sites out there that are super popular.
Why not combine the two? Gather data about your audience while providing entertainment.
The NY Times did this last ...
5
Yes, a simple mechanism for feedback can be much more effective than a longer usability survey.
The key for understanding this is to consider the time investment that you're asking your users to make when they give you feedback.
Almost everyone will be willing to give you a single click of feedback.
Almost noone will be willing to spend an hour writing an ...
4
I think this is more a question of survey design than analysis. From what you say, answers given were average throughout. If you were to run the survey again, you could include questions with more free-text answers inviting more detailed responses, provide rating scales with less opportunity for 'average' responses (e.g. 4 point scales rather than 5 point ...
4
The list of questions would depend on the product but here are a few general question ideas.
How did you learn about product X? Why did you decide to use product
X?
What were your goals when you started using product X? Did product X meet your expectations related to these goals?
What are the the most frequent tasks you do using product X? Explain how ...
4
I would suggest you would ask the user to give their personal information before the survey. Another way to do it is to let them know that there is a form at the end of the survey that they can choose to fill out and win something. Let them know that the form is not mandatory.
An honest interface is very important if you want your customers to enjoy their ...
4
Don't use a popup survey unless it if for critical information and you have no another way of getting it. And there are negligible situations where this is the actual case.
You are essentially doing something that hurts UX, in order to find out some information about your UX. The best way to do this is to sit down with some potential users and do a proper ...
4
I did my PhD on how sensitive information is managed in healthcare and in childcares, so this is a very important question.
If you are at a University, you must get this passed by your IRB. If anything goes wrong or if information somehow is leaked, then your university is the one who is held liable. If you work for an organization, I also suggest getting ...
3
Excessive navigation is annoying enough for computer literate users; little info blurbs like that are more like tool tips, not tons of separate pages and back-and-forth clicking. That said, don't use tool tips.
For older and less computer literate users I would remember that they tend to read web pages and interfaces like they are a page of a book. Rather ...
3
Roger's answer provides a good way to add some flavor to the copy, but I'd strongly suggest avoiding the "extra verbs" on long or repeated forms. Since this is a survey, users probably won't be filling it in more than once, but this fluff adds up the more fields there are to read.
For a multiple page form, every extra second is an extra reason to abandon ...
3
It depends on your business priorities and values.
If you put user experience above all, then you should make it as easy as possible to unsubscribe and ask for the reason at the "Your account has been closed successfully" screen. This will obviously reduce the number of responses but you won't hear horror stories about the number of hoops users had to jump ...
3
I think its a very good idea what you're doing.
There of course is the alternative simpler 'Yes' 'No' question that Stack Exchange sites put below questions when you're not logged in:
There's a very interesting piece from Jacob Neilsen on a similar topic: Collecting Feedback From Users of an Archive:
The Survey Form "ask what topic the user was looking ...
3
It is a very difficult thing to do successfully. The problem is that some people may use shortcuts without knowing about it, and some of your craftsmen and salesmen may actually use a number of different programs, because they have to, without actually understanding them.
I would suggest, because you probably know your clients well enough, that you list a ...
3
I would use a set of questions on a scale: for example, "I only use a computer when I really have to" or " I use a computer for a number of tasks, but sometimes have to get help" right up to "I am a computer expert who works in computer problem solving"
The important thing is to define the limits of the scale, and make every entry positive, which is a ...
3
I agree with the others that this is hard to visualize, so I'm not sure if this is directly answering your question or not.
120 options is way too many to handle using standard form elements. You may want to look into the Chosen library. You may find an elegant solution to your specific problem.
3
Have you considered talking to chess instructors? They should be able to give you a top-10 list of common problems beginner chess players face (across different age groups). This way, you don't have to limit your app to only address the piece-movement problem. You can even expand it to include simple chess puzzles, or introduce the player to the other chess ...
3
This isn't always easy and you will most likely have to adapt whatever practice you decide on to fit your specific situation. If you're unable to observe people, or you're experimenting to learn about how to capture the right information, surveys can help you gain an initial understanding.
The biggest problem with asking people why they do something is ...
3
Drawing lines can feel like dragging and dropping... You're dragging a pencil to make a connection between two things.
How about dragging an object on the left on top of an object on the right? Then they would be displayed as "stacked"? The stacking also means you have less and less options on the left as you go, making it easier to read your remaining ...
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