- Instructions and examples should be on the left of the margin to catch participants attention, except the languages read from right to left 

Claremont Graduate University

28 Tips for Creating Great Qualitative Surveys

Farrell, S. (2016, September 25). 28 Tips for Creating Great Qualitative Surveys. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/qualitative-surveys/

"28 Tips for Creating Great Qualitative Surveys"

- Create questions, ask coworkers to answer the questions, and comment on their clarity and usefulness. 
- Recruit targeted population to answer the survey questions-- one participant/ round of testing. Recommended: four rounds with a revision between each round
- Randomize questions because some people stop answering halfway and prevent order bias 
- Test the survey format with the targeted audiences
- Test survey if data is analyzable and useful
- Final Revision


1) Survey Testing

Many helpful online platforms will save a lot of time and money. 

2) Online Tools 

If you know the goals of the surveys, you know what to report and the specific graphs and tables that should be used. 

3) Survey Learning Goals

A question should not imply preferred or expected answers

4) Neutral Questions 

- Open-ended -- best approach; however, too many can result in unnecessary details, and participants would get tired of tying and explaining. 
- Open-ended is best in survey testing, and the variability of the answers will determine if the questions should be open-ended or closed-ended


5) Open vs. Closed Questions 

Different types of questions should be considered depending on the kind of data that you are looking for

6) Consider questions for data analysis 

- Multiple answer questions tend to be better as participants give many answers for accuracy
- You should consider the number of responses and the number of choices people make


7) Multiple vs. Single Answers 

8) Important Questions First 

- Sometimes, people cannot answer specific questions. If “Not Applicable”/ “Don’t Use” are not part of the options, participants cannot answer honestly and skew data. 

9) Include: “Not Applicable” and “Don’t Use”

- Under each question should be labeled “Optional” or “Required,” instead of “*.”

10) Required/ Optional Questions

Make sure the optional questions are marked, so participants can skip them if they want
Having too many required questions makes participants quit in the middle. 


11) Optional Questions 

Try to keep surveys short as an additional question reduces the response rate. 

12) Short survey 

- People read more when there are fewer words 

14) One-line Direction 

- Participants do not usually read them. Essential words should be bolded if paragraphs are used. 

15) Paragraphs and introductions 

- When the terms are used, you should ask how participants feel or think to emphasize their subjective experience. 

16) Subjective Terms 

- Shared meaning can prevent misleading answers or misinterpretation. 

17) Define Terms 

- Participants should answer “why” and “how” questions, not the analytics

18) Why and How Questions

19) Survey Professional 

- Ordering issues can skew data
- Participants pay attention to what comes first 
- Short-lists are better than the long-lists 
- Top and bottom items have more attention than the middle ones 


20) Ordering 

- Similar topic questions should be on the same page 

21) Page Break 

- When participants select a specific answer, they should answer similar questions to avoid questions that they cannot answer. 

22) Conditional Questions 

- Qualitative surveys gather opinions, not generalizable information 

23) Data with Grain of Salt 

- Coding is a process that makes sense of a text by counting responses or defining different phrases into one

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