Creating and distributing a structured questionnaire to gather insights, feedback, or data from users or potential users, and best for capturing quantitative attitudinal data. (attitudinal = ‘what people say’ v. behavioural ‘what people do’)
Surveys typically provide a quantitative counterpart to the more qualitative methods typically used during the Discovery phase such as interviews or observations. It can also be used to complement other feedback loops during the Validation phase.
It is primarily used to (1) quickly gather feedback from a large number of participants, (2) validate qualitative insights or hypotheses derived from other research method or (3) quantify and measure user needs, behaviors, and preferences
This may be used in a qualitative approach through the use of open questions, but typically to complement other qualitative research.
👥Who
User researcher.
🛠 Running the technique
Prepare. Agree the learning objective with the product manager and service designer. Industry research clearly indicates it is very easy to write a bad survey that gathers flawed data.
Top tips include: Keep the survey short, and only ask questions that clearly contributes the learning objective. Don’t ask questions that you can find the answer to via other data sources. Don’t ask questions that respondents can’t answer accurately. Use language that is neutral and simple - no formal words or terms. Focus on close ended questions versus open ended ones. Avoid double barrelled questions, e.g. How easy and intuitive was the task to do? Provide an opt-out as a response option, and design most questions to be optional.
Choose a relevant medium for the target participant group to deploy the survey, that also provides the level of customisation and analytics capture required to meet the primary objective.
Monitor the response rates(rule of thumb is >50 target sample size), close the survey and then undertake analysis of the results. Use a visualisation tool to communicate the insights with the team.
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