The topic today is grids. Specifically, the grids you get in some online questionnaires, with the brands listed along the top of the page, and a string of brand attributes down the side.

I’ve seen grids with 70 odd cells (or more!) to complete. You even have to scroll and scroll down the page to see the whole grid. And then there’s another 70+ cell grid on the next page.

Do you really think respondents will go through each brand and each attribute and rate them thoughtfully?

Chances are you’ll get random answers so they can just get to the next page. And then it’ll be a race to get past all the other grids just to get the incentive. 

Reliable, quality data? No!

If you haven’t been following this thread, it’s all about Terrible Questionnaires. The focus is on online surveys and I’m making suggestions on how to avoid writing or commissioning them.

Here’s the first tip: keep them short.

I thought everyone knew about this. But I keep getting 20 minute long (sometimes longer!) questionnaires. Even if I’m interested in the topic, 20 minutes is too long. I get tired and bored.

“But I can’t make it shorter. I need to know about X, Y and Z!” you say emphatically. Well, you also need to know that if your questionnaire is too long, the quality and usefulness of the data you collect will be compromised.

5 minutes. In most cases, I reckon that’s about how long you’ve got before respondents tune out. Flick the “nice to know” and focus on the “need to know” information.

If it must be longer, schedule several sessions (and incentives) over time. Believe me, if the questionnaire is too long, and your respondents get bored and tired, you’ll get rubbish.

There are two ways a questionnaire might be Terrible:

•    It’s uninteresting and difficult to answer, which is Terrible from a respondent’s point of view

•    It fails to collect useful data, which is Terrible from a marketer’s point of view

I’m going to focus on the uninteresting and difficult to answer problem. Because notwithstanding poorly defined research objectives, I can’t think of any other variable that could have as much impact on the usefulness of the data as an uninteresting and difficult to answer questionnaire.

Most of the Terrible Questionnaires in my folder are similarly Terrible: 

•    They’re too long,

•    They have impossible grids to cope with (sometimes several pages of them) and, 

•    Most of them, quite patently, haven’t been test driven.

Over the next few blogs, I’m going to work on some guidelines to avoid the pitfalls of Terrible Questionnaires.

Stay tuned…

I have a folder on my computer desktop called Terrible Questionnaires. 

It houses a vast collection of questionnaires I’ve been sent that I’ve either got stuck on, got tired of, or thought I could have written better.  

Every time I look at the Terrible Questionnaire folder, I get annoyed.

So I’m writing in the hope that those writing, or commissioning, the Terrible Questionnaires will stop doing it, and start writing interesting and easy to complete questionnaires. I’m hoping to do away with the Terrible Questionnaire folder altogether.

Next time, I’ll explain why I think they’re Terrible (capital T). Stay tuned…

I always try to make time for Time. There’s a very interesting piece about Customer Service in the age of self-serve technology in this issue. See what you think.

My mobile died. Again. So I’m looking to upgrade to a smart phone.

What I really, really want – what I absolutely covet – is an iphone. But, sigh, we’re still waiting for them to arrive here in Australia.

So I’m on the hunt for a Raspberry BlackBerry. But do you think I can find one to buy? Nope. And worse, do you think anyone can tell me when the next batch is coming in? Not a chance.

Now if I were RIM (who make BlackBerry handhelds), I’d be a bit worried about the launch of the iphone. I’d be making sure that I captured as much of the market as possible before it happened.

So why can’t I buy BlackBerry anywhere?