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With the availability of online survey tools today, it has never been easier to create a survey for your friends, family and more increasingly your place of work. There is no secret the feedback can be extremely helpful for selecting food for a get-together that everyone will enjoy, improving consumer satisfaction or getting some original ideas from your customer base on a new product or service.

Although it has become increasingly easy to create a survey it is important to keep in mind that there are many seemingly innocent mistakes that can greatly reduce the validity of your results if not completely discredit them.

Last week we discussed the five simplest ways to discredit your research which included ambiguity, incomprehensible/unanswerable questions, leading questions, loaded questions and double-barreled questions. To further insure your research is credible there are additional subtleties when asking questions that one should keep in mind.

• Be Direct
• “May I know your age?”
• “What is your age?”
• Avoid fancy or slag words
• Use “like” not “appreciate”
• Use “like” not “cool”
• When rating a product, service or idea, specify, specify, specify.
• “How much do you like Apple products?”
• “How much do you like Apple products for gaming… for art?”
• Topic Bias
• Some topics are more sensitive in certain communities, cultures, countries or even industries. Know your audience!
• Ask simple questions not compound questions
• “Have you stopped eating fast food?” (one may have never started)

Designing the perfect survey is no simple task and will most likely be tedious at times but don’t be disheartened; even today students around the world are studying to receive their Undergraduate, Masters and PHD degrees in the field of market research and analytics. Keep this in mind when designing your survey and have a friend or coworker review your survey before you send it off to insure it is clear, concise and to the point.