August 2001

Questionnaire Design

We all understand that research consists of gathering useful information to help analyze content or brand, capture consumer behavior, understand our market, increase sales, track results, etc. It plays an increasingly important role in our rapidly evolving industry.

But how do we obtain this information? What makes a good research good? After reliability and accuracy, it must be actionable. How do we accomplish that? One of the keys to obtaining useful and meaningful information is paying special attention when designing the tool that will lead us to such valuable data: the questionnaire.

Whether developing questions for questionnaires or interviews or focus groups, there are certain guidelines to ensure respondents provide information that is useful and can be best analyzed:

Before creating the questionnaire, it is essential to identify what issues need to be addressed using the resulting information. In other words, define the objectives or goals of the study, from general to very specific and targeted. This provides a focus on what questions should be used.

• Prioritize based upon the information you "need" to know, and leave behind the type of information that "would be nice" to know. The more focused you maintain about research goals, the more effective and efficient the research will be, plus the shorter the time it will take. Obviously, that will help minimize the financial obligation and decrease the time to get a return on investment.
  
  
• Make sure that the questions are designed so respondents can easily understand and answer.
  
  
• Keep your target market in mind. Using the right wording is very important if you want respondents to understand the questions and to obtain the desired response. Is the use of slang, cultural specific or technical words necessary?
  
  
• Directions should be given on how to answer the questions. In some studies respondents might be asked about their interest in different topics. Explain what the question is about - even read them the possible answers (very interested, somewhat interested, etc), and finally the list of topics to be rated.
  
  
• Avoid using "not" in the questions if you are having respondents answer "yes" or "no" to a questions. Use of "not" can lead to double negatives and cause confusion.
  
  
• Keep in mind that some questions will not apply to everybody, so make sure skip patterns are included as needed. For example, if a respondent is asked about Internet access and he doesn't access the Internet, he should be able to skip all related questions.
  
  
• Deployment should always be structured so that the questionnaire is pre-tested. This will help catch possible mistakes or bring up issues that might have been otherwise overlooked.
  
  
• If hoping to achieve multiple objectives, consider smaller, targeted questionnaires that more thoroughly explore the issue.
  
  
• Consider recruiting respondents for follow-up panel or focus group work. All efforts that engender loyalty, plus offer more feedback should be integrated.

These are only a few things to keep in mind when designing the questionnaire. It is sometimes hard to decide what needs to be included - to sort through multiple goals - take the time to do so.

Questionnaire design is not the end of the story for a successful research - data collection, analysis and presenting results are other important steps for accomplishing successful research. Take care to be sure data is properly collected and the results scrutinized closely! That could mean using an objective third party with a wealth of similar experience.

Research is a tool - a compass to provide guidance (in these times we could truly use it!) - being able to place a study in context and to understand how to implement the results suggested by a study are REALLY what matters.

As a client once remarked, "In God we trust; everything else we research!"