This is part 7 of my series on writing a good user survey. If you're just joining us, you may want to start with part 1.
Lazy questions
How did you hear about us?Now most of the time you see an "other" option at the bottom of lists like this, but I'm constantly amazed at how many times there isn't one. Sometimes the list has fifteen or twenty items -- the maker clearly thought about this for a while or asked a bunch of people -- but he just can't conceive of the possibility that maybe someone heard about them some other way. Or that they don't know how they heard. For me, it's often something like "I read a press release when you started the company and I've had my eye on you for years" or "You've been around for decades and you're on the news and people all over the place use your products." How did you first hear about Apple? I bet you don't know!
- Yelp
- A friend
- TV commercial
- radio commercial
- that's it, there are NO MORE WAYS!
If you find yourself making a list of items in a question -- whether it's the example above or some other kind of listy question -- you should always include an "other" option. (Ideally, that option should let the user fill in his own value.) There is no reason not to. And there's nothing more irksome as a test taker than having to pick some wrong choice because there is no right one. Okay, there are actually many things that are more irksome than that, but you know what I mean.
Sorry today's post is a short one. It turns out that not all subjects can be conveniently divided into perfectly-sized chunks of knowledge! Check back tomorrow for part 8, where I'll cover two easy-to-write questions that should be on every survey -- and can make or save you lots of money.
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This is part 7 of my series on writing a good user survey. If you want to start at the beginning, head back over to part 1.
Hire me, and then I'll write your next survey! I'm available for full-time or consulting work -- email me.
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