Comments on: How to Conduct an Online Survey

By: Kelly

Kelly — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:18:15 +0000

Thank you for this article. It looks like I’m a bit late to the game. I’ve recently created a survey on Surveymonkry for a small business I am starting. I emailed my contacts and posted it on facebook which has resulted in about 100 responses.

I’m curious if there are other places to post the survey to get the attention of more than my innercircle?

Thank you for a great article!

By: Larry

Larry — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:11:29 +0000

“You don’t want to waste anyone’s time by asking for irrelevant information, but you also don’t want to miss anything important.”

This is such an important point. When in University, I use to hate the course surveys they would hand out at the end of each semester.

Keep up the great posts. I really enjoy post that give advice on how to get by on your own terms.

By: jen

jen — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:56:04 +0000

This post was so helpful. THanks for offering up your expertise!

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:08:08 +0000

I also recommend Google Forms. It’s a great little web app that does something quickly and easily that used to require a web developer.

By: Omar

Omar — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:54:14 +0000

Your post came at the right time. I am mulling over the idea of including a survey for my upcoming book. The reasons you list are pretty valid. Thanks Chris.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:38:21 +0000

Good question. The main reason why I limit the responses is not for quality of data, it’s so I won’t get overwhelmed and I want to honor everyone’s time. If I asked people to take a survey but then didn’t pay close attention to their feedback, I don’t think that would be very nice.

Keep in mind also that I’m not highly scientific with this (or anything!). I haven’t found that the first comments are rushed– it seems that most are thoughtful.

By: Trackback from PluginID

Trackback from PluginID — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:32:18 +0000

[...] had the idea of doing a reader survey thanks to this post by Chris Guillebeau, and thought that it would be a great idea to see what you all really think of [...]

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 21:22:04 +0000

Chris, a question for you–how do you get genuinely useful feedback if you limit it to just the first batch of responses?

Isn’t it sort of like comments, in the sense that the ones that tend to appear first (the ones that are posted within minutes of a new post going up) are usually rushed, arbitrary and not all that thought out, while the comments that come in after a few hours ARE more thought out and thus more valuable?

By that logic, you might want to skip the first 100 responses, and read the next 250. Curious if you would consider doing that at all.

Dan
Casual Kitchen

By: Dayne

Dayne — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:57:36 +0000

The timing of this post couldn’t have been any better. Just this past week I’ve thought of a few things I would like to ask my blog readers but I’ve never done an online survey before.

I really appreciate all your pointers Chris, they will help me greatly!

Cheers,
Dayne

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:55:47 +0000

@Peter,

I don’t think all membership sites are evil, so it wasn’t a bad question at all. The answer to the question depends on what kind of data you are looking for. It’s true that folks who fit into the “true fan” category will often provide different feedback than general followers.

All things being equal, I would value the feedback from true fans more, but I also like to hear what other people are saying too.

@Michal,

I don’t like to incentivize people to respond to surveys. Enough people are usually happy to do it that you don’t need to bribe the others.