When it comes to using SurveyMonkey, there are many bells and whistles within our design tools that you may not be aware of or just aren’t sure how to implement. Before becoming SurveyMonkey’s in-house trainer, I spent several years as a survey design specialist helping customers design their surveys. In that role, I picked up some great tips and tricks for fine-tuning our surveys to produce a polished look while also returning responses that are easy to analyze.
I use a 7-step checklist at the start of each survey to assess what I want to include in the survey and how it will affect the data. This post introduces the checklist, and in the coming weeks, I will focus on each item in list and provide additional ideas for how to make your survey a success.
7-step checklist:
- Introduction content – Include relevant contact details, intent of survey, privacy notification and instructions.
- Colors and logo – Brand the survey design to your company’s look and feel.
- Survey content – Create question types based on what you want the data to look like or do.
- Polish the design – Apply the Required Answer feature, use Text Validation (e.g. edit the error messages accordingly), adjust the question placement and spacing for a clean look (more/less white space) so it’s easy for your respondents to complete your survey.
- Thank You page – Include final information and thank the respondent.
- Survey completion option – Decide how do you want the survey to end. Do you want respondents to return to your site? Do you want the window to close?
- Distributing the survey – Decide if you want to send by email, embed it on your site or blog, or post to Facebook or Twitter. Figure out if you want to track responses or keep them anonymous, and if you want to restrict responses to one per person.
Stay tuned for in-depth explorations of each step in the checklist!
