Survey Design Checklist

It’s important to spend the needed time and effort when planning your survey as bad information is worse than no information at all. Follow this design checklist to help you design a survey that will provide actionable, clear information for your decisions.

Define Objectives

Did you write down what decisions will be made based on the data?

Do you have no more than 3 main objectives?

Outline the Survey

Does your survey include an introduction explaining purpose of the study, duration, and incentive information?

Does the survey begin with a closed-ended question?

Do you have questions at the beginning of the survey to select appropriate survey respondents to continue with the survey?

Do the questions go from general to specific?

Are the demographic questions at the end?

Are any sensitive questions toward the end of the survey?

Do all questions relate to your objectives?

Do you complete each topic before moving on to the next?

Draft Questions

Do questions avoid use of jargon, acronyms, or terminology unfamiliar to respondents?

Are the questions simple and concise?

Do you ask questions before describing the rating scale?

Are all possible answer options included, or did you include an “Other” option?

Do you allow the respondent to select “Prefer not to answer” for sensitive questions?

Do you display the most positive answer options first?

Do you include a midpoint answer on rating scales?

Are you using unbalanced scales on questions for which you expect the majority of answers to be in a top 2 box?

Are you using closed-ended questions whenever possible for data analysis?

Are open-ended questions voluntary?

Review and Pre-Test

Have you sent the survey to colleagues or friends to review question wording and survey timing?

Have you pre-tested the survey by first sending to a small group of actual survey respondents to ensure data is being collected as expected?

Does the survey take 10 minutes or less to complete? 5 closed-ended questions take approximately one minute, and 2 open-ended questions take approximately one minute

Will you be able to make the decisions you identified in your objectives based on the data?

You can find additional online survey tips and suggestions on our blog to help your survey experience be a success.  If you haven’t created your survey yet, sign up for free with SurveyRock.