Top 10 Survey Design Best Practices for Actionable Feedback

In the ever-evolving landscape of data collection, the confidence to design surveys that truly extract meaningful information is a skill worth mastering. This article is your guide to navigating the intricacies of Survey Design Best Practices, providing you with a toolkit of best practices that ensures your surveys are not just questions but strategic instruments crafted with confidence.

Picture yourself at a fancy restaurant, eagerly waiting for your meal. The waiter finally brings out your plate, and you take a bite.

But something’s off – you can’t quite place it, but the taste is different from what you anticipated.

You flag down the waiter and ask if there’s something wrong with the dish. The waiter responds, “No, it’s perfect. Everyone else loves it.”

This may appear ludicrous, but it’s quite common in survey design.

Too often, companies create surveys that are either poorly designed or fail to ask pertinent questions. And just like a poorly cooked meal, this can leave customers feeling unsatisfied and misunderstood.

Therefore, it’s important to follow survey design best practices. From this, you can ensure that the feedback you receive is actionable and useful.

In this blog you will learn:

Table of Contents:

1. What is Survey Design?
2. What are the 3 C’s of Survey Design?
3. Top 10 Survey Design Best Practices
4. How to Report & Interpret Results?
5. Wrap Up

Let’s explore the definition of survey design.

What is Survey Design?

Definition: Survey design is the art of creating survey questions and response options that elicit useful information from respondents. Effective information data design is crucial, as it impacts the accuracy of your data and the conclusions you draw from it. A poorly designed survey can result in inaccurate or partial data, making it challenging to draw meaningful conclusions..

What are the 3 C’s of Survey Design?

• Clear

Ensure the survey questions are easy to understand and interpret by respondents. You should phrase the questions without any ambiguity or confusion. Also, avoid the use of technical jargon or complex language.

• Concise

Survey questions should be brief and to the point. Long, convoluted questions can confuse respondents and lead to inaccurate or incomplete data. Therefore, you should avoid unnecessary words and phrases that do not add to the question’s meaning.

• Communicative

Your survey should communicate the intended message to the respondents effectively. This involves using appropriate language, tone, and formatting to ensure the respondents understand the questions. Consequently, provide accurate answers.

Let’s explore the top 10 survey design best practices to help you get the most out of customer feedback.

Top 10 Survey Design Best Practices

We’ve covered the basics of survey design. Let’s explore the top 10 survey design best practices for actionable feedback.

1. Define the research objectives:

What sort of data are you looking for? What insights do you intend to gain through your research? Defining your objectives will make your survey targeted, focused, and efficient.

2. Identify the target audience:

Your survey ought to be relevant to your intended respondents. As a result, you should know who you’ll be surveying. Consider factors like age, gender, location, and interests to zero in on the perfect audience.

3. Choose the right survey method:

Online, phone and in-person surveys are a few of the survey methods. You can also use a survey template in Excel to streamline data collection. Select the approach that best serves your research objectives and target audience.

4. Develop clear and concise questions:

Remember the three C’s of survey design? Your survey questions should be clear, concise, and communicative. Avoid using technical jargon or complex sentences; use plain language whenever possible.

5. Avoid leading and biased questions:

Leading and biased questions can skew your results, so avoiding them is essential. Use neutral language and avoid making assumptions about your audience.

6. Use scales and response options appropriately:

Scales and response options can help you gather more nuanced data, and using them appropriately is important. Ensure your response options cover all possible answers, and avoid using too many options.

7. Test the survey:

Before launching your survey, it’s important to test it with a small group. This pilot test will help you identify any issues with your survey design. Then make necessary changes before launching it to a larger audience.

8. Consider incentives:

Incentives can encourage people to participate in your survey. Therefore, it’s important to choose the right incentives for your audience. Such incentives include discounts or gifts etc.

9. Ensure confidentiality and anonymity:

People may hesitate to provide honest feedback if they are not guaranteed confidentiality and anonymity. Ensure that your survey is confidential and anonymous enough to encourage honest responses.

10. Analyze and report results:

Once you’ve collected your survey data, it’s important to analyze and report the results. Use data visualization tools and clear, concise language to communicate your findings effectively.

If you follow these survey design best practices then you can craft a survey that will give you good results.

How to Report & Interpret Results?

Excel is a powerful data visualization tool. However, it can fall short when it comes to visualization and analysis, especially in handling complex data sets like those from a longitudinal survey. While Excel has some valuable charting features, they can be constrained in some instances. Additionally, they might not have the adaptability to produce powerful visual representations of such data over time.

Thankfully, there is a solution: ChartExpo.

With ChartExpo for Excel, you can easily create insightful visualizations to draw intelligent conclusions from your data.

Benefits of Using ChartExpo

• ChartExpo is the perfect tool for creating insightful visualizations with ease. It has an intuitive user interface that eliminates the need for any technical skills or coding expertise.
• ChartExpo offers a wide range of features and customization options. This allows you to create visually appealing representations of your data that effectively communicate insights.
• ChartExpo has a free 7-day trial and a $10 monthly plan. This makes it an excellent choice for businesses or individuals on a budget.

How to Install ChartExpo in Excel?

1. Open your Excel application.
2. Open the worksheet and click the “Insert” menu.
3. You’ll see the “My Apps” option.
4. In the office Add-ins window, click “Store” and search for ChartExpo on my Apps Store.
5. Click the “Add” button to install ChartExpo in your Excel.

ChartExpo charts are available both in Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Please use the following CTA’s to install the tool of your choice and create beautiful visualizations in a few clicks in your favorite tool.

Let’s say you run a cleaning services business. You have created a survey with the following questions to collect customer feedback.

• Do you agree with our cleaning staff’s behavior?
• Do you agree with our cleaning services?
• Will you recommend our services to your circle?

Your survey design has the scale below mapped on each question

1. Strongly Disagree
2. Disagree
3. Neither agree nor disagree
4. Agree
5. Strongly Agree

Assume your survey has yielded the results table below.

How satisfied are you with the punctuality of the cleaning service?	How satisfied are you with the professionalism of the cleaning staff?	How satisfied are you with the thoroughness of the cleaning service?
Neither agree nor disagree	Strongly Disagree	Strongly Agree
Strongly Agree	Agree	Neither agree nor disagree
Neither agree nor disagree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree
Disagree	Agree	Neither agree nor disagree
Strongly Disagree	Strongly Disagree	Disagree
Agree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree
Strongly Disagree	Agree	Agree
Agree	Disagree	Neither agree nor disagree
Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Agree
Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree
Neither agree nor disagree	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Strongly Agree	Strongly Disagree	Strongly Agree
Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neither agree nor disagree
Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree
Agree	Agree	Agree
Neither agree nor disagree	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree
Disagree	Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree
Strongly Disagree	Strongly Agree	Disagree
Disagree	Disagree	Strongly Disagree

This table contains example data. Expect many responses and questions in real life.

• To get started with ChartExpo, install ChartExpo in Excel.

• Now Click on My Apps from the INSERT menu.

• Choose ChartExpo from My Apps, then click Insert.

• Once it loads, choose the “Likert Scale Chart” from the charts list.

• Click the “Create Chart From Selection” button after selecting the data from the sheet, as shown.

• When you click the “Create Chart From Selection” button, you have to map responses with numbers manually. The Likert scale has this arrangement:
  • Strongly Disagree = 1
  • Disagree = 2
  • Neither agree nor disagree = 3
  • Agree = 4
  • Strongly Agree = 5
• Once all is set, click the “Create Chart” button.

• ChartExpo will generate the visualization below for you.

• If you want to have the title of chart, click on Edit Chart, as shown in the above image.
• To change the title of the chart, click on the pencil icon that is available very next to Chart Header.
• It will open the properties dialog. Under the Text section, you can add a heading in Line 1 and enable the Show option. Give the appropriate title of your chart and click on Apply button.

• Let’s say you want to add text responses instead of numbers against every emoji.
• Click the pencil icon next to the respective emoji. Expand the “Label” properties and write the required text. Then click the “Apply All” button.
• Click the “Save Changes” button to persist the changes.

• Your final chart will look as below.

Insights

• 55% of customers agree to recommend your services to others. However, 25% do not recommend it, and 20% remain neutral.
• When it comes to cleaning services, 60% agree, but 40% do not agree.
• Regarding the behavior of the cleaning staff, 45% agree. 35% do not agree, and 20% remain neutral.
• Overall:
  • 54% of customers gave positive responses to the survey questions.
  • 34% gave negative feedback.
  • 13% remained neutral.

FAQs:

What are 3 important things to consider when designing a survey?

Take the following factors into account when creating a survey:

• Purpose: Clearly state what you aim to achieve.
• Clarity: Ensure the questions are understandable and straightforward.
• Length: Keep the survey short and focused.

What are the three C’s of survey design?

The three C’s are the essential factors you consider in survey design;

• Clarity ensures that the purpose of the survey is clear.
• Conciseness is aligned with the survey’s focus.
• Communicativeness ensures that the survey questions are easy to understand and answer.

Wrap Up

Customer feedback is an essential aspect of every organization. It gives you valuable information on how your customers feel about your products and services. This data assists you in better understanding what your customers desire and how to optimize your offerings.

Success is dependent on knowing what your customers think. And surveys are a great way to accomplish that.

However, surveys can be challenging to design, implement, and analyze.

Fortunately, you can use these survey design best practices to improve the quality of your organization’s customer feedback. Consequently, increase the likelihood of actionable insights.

If you do a poor job designing your survey, respondents might not take the time to complete it. Or even bother to read the questions.

The result?

Your data set will be smaller and less helpful.

Now that you know how to create effective surveys, you can put your skills to the test.

ChartExpo offers an intuitive, few-clicks solution to creating insightful data visualizations to analyze your survey data.