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Here are some thoughtful ideas around creating better and more optimized surveys. You probably only want to ask questions that you can action or follow up on. And never ask for more than you need!

1. Every question you ask takes time to respond to, so don’t ask too many. Or else you will lose the goodwill of the survey respondent filling it out.
2. Never ask vague questions that let them sit on the fence. Or you will find people tend to stick to the middle responses and remain neutral.  You ideally want the responder to be providing an opinion in order to gain insight. Example: Asking for a range of Extremely Satisfied through to Dissatisfied, versus instead “How well do you think we did?”.
3. Initial questions you ask can indeed influence later responses.  Asking a question about their favorite consumer brand of detergent for example. Now the responder is thinking about what they connect with. But remember that could lead them to respond differently if you later ask “rate our detergent with others you prefer”.
4. Have an option for a responder to skip questions or submit as many responses as they like. Do not require them to finish the whole questionnaire. You can probably remember responding to very long surveys and not wanting to really think about your responses so you can just finish.
5. Similarly keep some of your questions fun so as to keep people interested in continuing, without boring them.
6. If you are going to add rating scales, why not think about making the scales generate an emotional response. Easy User Experience through to Completely Confused

Resources:

Please leave your suggestions in the comments, or links to more resources on this topic.

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