Length

It is impossible to give ‘rules’ for this, but it is generally good to keep the length of your survey reasonably short, so that it can be completed in a few minutes. If it is likely to take more than five minutes or so to complete, you can include a note saying that it will probably take a particular length of time to complete and giving reasons for producing a questionnaire of that length.

Questions

There are many topics for questions and also many questioning techniques. Some of the issues to consider are:

• in which order to place questions
• the kind of rating scale to use for responses – for example, numerical ratings, preference scales, alternatives to choose between, and so forth
• the manner in which you invite responses. It is important to keep your language neutral and avoid ‘leading’ your readers. There is much scope for bias in questionnaire design and it is a subject that needs to be handled carefully. Of course, surveys are sometimes designed with the intention of producing a biased response, but this raises major ethical issues.
• The reasons for including particular questions. You should make sure there is a justifiable reason for each one and that they do not conflict with privacy and anti-discrimination legislation.

Analysis

Responses to surveys have to be analysed. If you consider this at an early stage in the process it will make the task easier. For example, having questions with ‘fixed choice’ options, where the reader only has to tick a box or put a mark on a scale, makes the survey easier to analyse than one with ‘open’ questions, where you invite a written answer. In the latter case you subsequently have to spend time placing the responses into categories.

Publication

Finally, you should decide whether to publish the responses to your survey or whether simply to use them to inform your own decision-making processes. The results of some surveys will be of interest to your readership, while the results of others might not. There may also be an expectation that, if you invite responses, you will let people know the results, so there are various factors to take into account in considering whether or not to publish survey results.

As a last point, you might consider doing a joint survey with another body or with an advertiser. This could generate funds for you, if part of the costs were met by the other party, but there are issues regarding confidentiality, administration, and so forth, if you take this course of action.