The Survey Guide - How to Design a Professional Questionnaire

Dichotomous questions are those that offer only two response options for participants to choose from, such as "Yes" or "No" or "True" or "False".

In some cases, an additional response option of "I don't know" may be offered.

While dichotomous questions can be useful in quickly gathering an overview of consumer opinions, they are not suitable for all types of questions as the answers may not be highly differentiated, and may not provide enough information.

Additionally, not all questions can be framed in a way that offers only two alternative answers.

Single selection questions, also known as single choice questions, are useful when a respondent is required to select only one answer alternative among many.

To prevent biased results, it is important to randomize the answer options by arranging them in a different order for each participant.

This helps to avoid the tendency for people to select the first answer option presented to them.

Rating scales are a valuable tool to assess consumers' attitudes towards a product or idea.

Typically, a five or seven-point scale is used to gauge a respondent's level of agreement or preference. The middle point indicates neutrality, while the remaining points are either numbered or described with adjectives.

This type of question is quick to administer and allows for easy comparison of responses.

However, interpretation of the scale may vary between individuals, and responses may be skewed towards the middle due to a tendency to avoid extremes.

Rating scales can be unipolar or bipolar, with the latter having both a positive and negative pole, measuring both agreement and disagreement. While unipolar scales have a single zero point and only measures agreement, from which agreement levels increase in only one direction.

Ranking questions are useful to determine consumers' preferences among different response options.

Respondents are asked to rank the provided options according to their preference.

Points are assigned based on the position of the option - the first option receives the highest number of points, the second option receives one point less, and so on.

For instance, if a participant ranks option A first, it gets 4 points, and if they rank option C second, it gets 3 points. The option with the highest number of points at the end of the survey is considered the most preferred one.

Ranking questions can provide valuable insights into consumer preferences and priorities, especially when there are several options to choose from. They can also be used to measure the relative importance of different factors or features.

Picture selection is a valuable tool in cases where it is challenging to articulate questions or perspectives using verbal language.

When a company wants to gather information on topics that may not have been previously considered, open-ended questions are a great choice.

They are particularly useful for gathering impressions and ideas.

However, it is crucial to avoid overloading participants with too many open-ended questions in a questionnaire, as it may discourage them from answering in detail.

Open questions are ideal for text input and numeric data.

For instance, a question could be asked about the price consumers would be willing to pay for a particular product or service.

Text completion tasks are also considered open-ended questions, but are appropriate for less detailed answers or when only one word is needed to complete a sentence.

Heat maps are a useful tool for gathering information from consumers through image-based questions.

These questions may include asking what catches their attention in an advertisement or where they believe a product is located in a photograph.

Heat maps can also be applied to maps to gather data related to location-based questions.

To obtain a better understanding of consumers' lifestyles, it can be valuable to observe how they live and how they concretely use a product or service.

By utilizing digital market research, it is now possible to gain insights into consumers' homes, such as their kitchen arrangements, refrigerator contents, and bedroom furniture.

A questionnaire can be designed to include questions that request consumers to take pictures of specific items or places, and they can also be encouraged to upload video or audio recordings to share their experiences or pronunciation of particular words.