5 Easy Ways To Improve Your Online Survey

There’s been a lot of talk in the research industry recently about sample fraud.

All for the right reasons.

But one particular group’s experience is often overlooked: The research participants.

Without them, our jobs wouldn’t exit.

I recently spent an hour as a research participant to see things from their perspective.

I signed up to various panel companies and went through the process first-hand.

My goal was simple: understand what it’s like on the other side.

In that hour, I earned £1.33!
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Whether you’re an experienced researcher or a recent graduate, here’s what I discovered.

Let’s dive in.

Online survey experience

I was offered a range of surveys.

From 1p to £1.25.

Some surveys took 2 minutes for 35p. Others took 12 minutes for 72p.

Many were long, misleading about completion percentages, which killed my motivation.

I was asked my age and gender five times in one survey. While it screens for fraudsters, it just annoyed me.

And then I didn’t realise how outdated some of our survey software actually is.

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We talk about fatigue, gamification, and design in our industry.

But what I experienced was old systems that didn’t engage me.

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Online survey screening questions

To earn £1.33, I had to complete or attempt over 30 surveys.

One survey had me answer 15 screening questions, only to show 5% completion. I ended it at 5%.

Screeners usually involve demographics and qualifier questions. Each took about 10 minutes. But many felt like I was taking the actual survey, only to find minimal progress.

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Mobile optimisation: Are we there yet?

Mobile optimisation for surveys requires more thought thank you think.

With desktop surveys, you don’t have to deal with the complexities of screen size or operating systems.

But surveys look drastically different on a phone than they do on a tablet. They also appear differently on Android than they do on iOS.

In order to make sure you get the best possible data, users need to take their time when optimising surveys.

As part of the test,, some of the surveys were a let down:

- Disjointed grid-questions

- Long single choice questions

- And video questions without sound.

The surveys felt disjointed.

Participation fatigue

Survey fatigue is not triggered by a singular cause. It results from various factors that researchers often neglect.

Here are the common causes I saw:

- Targeting the wrong audience

- Using long survey questions

- Asking repetitive questions

- Poor survey design

- Too many surveys [over-surveying]

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Summary

1. Take time out of your day to be a research participant

2. Think like a participant when reviewing surveys

3. Think like a participant [after the 10th survey] when reviewing surveys

4. Create a conversational survey design

5. Think quality, over quantity to beat survey fraud

Want to dive in deeper?

If you’re ready to take your survey and research skills further, you maybe interested in the ultimate guide to a brand awareness survey and the AI guide for market researchers.
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Your next steps

The next time you create a survey, here are 5 ideas to think about:

1. Think about surveys as an important touchpoint.

2. Keep it short.

3. Make survey design respondent-centric.

4. Keep it relevant.

5. Be transparent.

The art of a panel company or any market research company is to keep individuals engaged for longer.

Similarly to Netflix, they design their business model on keeping you engaged for as long as possible.

Now it’s time we put the Netflix effect to survey design.

What do you think?

Hope this helps.

See you next week.

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