Dr. Nolinske’s second article in her series is online over at NBRI, “Methods of Survey Data Collection”.  As always, she is insightful and interesting.

As a compliment to her article, I have listed some questions that will help you determine which data collection method is best for your survey.  I welcome your input.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1.    What type of survey?

• Employee Survey
• Customer survey
• Political Poll
• Market Research
• Other

Over at NBRI, Dr. Terrie Nolinske has begun a new series of articles aimed at explaining the benefits and pitfalls of conducting a survey.  I enjoy Dr. Nolinske’s writings so much that I decided to mirror each her articles with one of my own to bring some of her discussions over to SSO.

Dr. Nolinske’s inaugural article this week is entitled “Minimizing Errors in Survey Research”.  She discusses the potential errors in the layout and design of a survey instrument.  I decided to add to this by giving examples of errors in the wording or phrasing of survey questions.

Common Errors in Creating Survey Questions

Oftentimes those uninitiated in the formulation of survey questions want to go to a website and find questions or a survey template that fit their needs; cookie cutter questions that appear to ask what it is they want to know from customers, employees, voters, or consumers.  This is good if the original author of those questions is knowledgeable and the questions ask exactly what you are attempting to find out from your survey audience.

Need to gather stakeholder feedback about customer or employee attitudes, behavior and satisfaction but can’t justify the fees of a full service survey research firm? Consider using Survey Software Online (SSO) at www.SurveySoftwareOnline.com where you get a strategic, discriminating product at an affordable price.

Survey Software Online is several cuts above existing online survey software systems. SSO differentiates itself because it was developed and written not by software writers and developers, but by survey research professionals; their in-depth focus and expertise make the difference.

Advertising and marketing communities have clamored for our auditory attention on the radio; they have directed our visual attention to store shelves, billboards and television. In the United States, an average child is exposed to more than 30,000 television commercials a year; the average adult to approximately 86,500. In recent years, advertisers and marketing communities have used sensory branding to bombard our other senses of smell, taste and touch, luring us into trying over 1,000 new brands each year.

Researchers understand that the human brain rarely processes sensory input in isolation. Advertisers and marketers understand that consumers are most receptive to a product when that product appeals to and engages consumers’ multiple senses.

There is a clash of the titans going on in the Web-based applications arena. In the blue corner, from Redmond, Washington, the veteran multi-national computer software behemoth Microsoft. In the red corner, from Menlo Park, California, the Sultan of Search Engines, Google. The two have been trading punches for the past few years and the fight is just getting started.

The Microsoft versus Google battle features two companies approaching the Web-based applications market from completely different directions. Bill Gates and Microsoft built its empire on desktop applications running on local PCs, while Google conquered the online search and advertising markets. As Microsoft tries to grab a slice of Google’s search business, Google has been counter-punching by going behind the firewall of Microsoft. What lies ahead is a day where the Internet and browsers, instead of a computer’s operating system, may be the foundation for application development.

Watching Microsoft and Google slug it out for world domination of the computer industry has significant implications, pushing technology to the limit in a race for supremacy. Over the past few years Web-based applications, or Webapps, have been establishing themselves as the preferred platform for business information systems and other critical applications. They are part of the Web 2.0 generation, where websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They house the ability to access interactive facilities, allowing users to run software applications entirely through a browser.