Changes Needed in our Surveys to Improve Quality

Bill MacElroy, Socratic Technologies
Bernie Malinoff, element54

Research needs to be interactive to get consumers more involved with products. Usability is important. If a user doesn't understand the survey system, they can't or won't complete it. Telephone surveys are now online on computer screen and now they're getting boring.

People want take fun surveys . Researchers will get better results. Data consistency and respondent usability will also improve. Data is not consistent, and usability matters.

How do we get consumers engaged? If people are having fun doing a survey, they're more likely to be engaged with it. The challenge is not to make a 'cool' survey, but how does this affect your results? Radio buttons are the traditional way to look at a survey layout. Another option is a slider, and this can be changed throughout the survey.

We write complex survey questions, and how are consumers suppose to get through these surveys? If a consumer can't get off a page, they could create information to get off of the page. Do you filter out data after an error message is given?

If there's an error message, highlight the row. That'll provide more reliable answers.

We must understand usability principles
- There are ways to make all questions/surveys more appealing, intuitive and future-relevant
- Responsible innovation is the key
- Questions around interfaces, not just one common set of variables, must understand interface and the guidelines.

They key reason people decline a survey invitation is they say the last one they took was boring. Surveys have got to be more like video games. As an industry, we've got to be more engaging and through.

Largest reason people take surveys is because they want to be a partner, both acknowledged and treated like one. Respondents are people, and they need respect, not an input into a machine. No need to over invite them. They need to be compensated realistically. They also want to feel like what they're giving is of importance.

We have to get back to basic research. All of the technology is great, but if you don't get the question across and the right answers, the market research question isn't getting answered.