Today, for the first time in my professional career, I had to design a paper survey. This was an interesting experience, because I’m used to using software like Survey Monkey or Zoomerang where I just choose the type of question and then create the text components. Sure I probably could have created the survey in one of these programs and then printed it out, but I decided to do it the old fashioned way.
What I took away from this experience was that this was a great exercise in survey design. Ultimately, while online surveys allow us many freedoms and are in theory easier to compose, we should stick to the principles of paper surveys, even when doing them online.
Here are the challenges/principles that I faced:
1. Brevity – There’s only a limited number of questions you can fit on an 8x11 sheet of paper, even back and front. This meant that I had to really hone in on what it was I was trying to get at, and I could not boil the ocean. And even online, who wants to spend 20 minutes filling out a survey?
2. Usability – How can I make this survey an easy and positive experience for respondents? What font size and spacing are most appealing? How should I lay out that likert scale?
3. Design – How do I make sure that the survey is visually designed in a way that represents my client’s brand and looks professional enough to deliver to their clients.
4. Prototype – How does all of this come together in the end? Once I finished mocking up my survey in word, I wanted to see how it would translate to paper. I found myself printing the survey with multiple font sizes, and I caught errors in grammar and spelling. It is always a best practice to test your surveys online or off on yourself and probably a few others.
Can you think of more? I’d love to hear them!
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