Creating a survey might seem straightforward, but crafting questions that yield useful and actionable data requires attention and practice. With Netquest's Flash Survey, powered by SightX, you have a platform that guides you through this process, enabling you to obtain valuable insights quickly and efficiently.
✅ Best Practices for Writing Your Questions
1. Clearly Define Your Objectives
Before starting, it's crucial to understand the purpose of your survey. What decisions do you hope to make with the collected data? Which metrics are most important? What topics should you address to achieve these objectives? A good exercise is to ask yourself (or your team) questions like: What will this information be used for? What specific decisions will we make based on this data?
With Flash Survey, you can set your objectives from the beginning and design surveys aligned with them, ensuring each question adds value, is relevant, and brings you closer to the information you truly need.
2. Use Clear and Direct Language
Unless your sample targets a specific group, it's important to keep the language simple, avoiding jargon, unexplained acronyms, or trendy terms.
Ideally, write questions tailored to your audience's comprehension level. For instance, if the survey targets the general public, aim for a 12-year-old reading level, using simple and clear vocabulary and structures.
3. Keep the Survey Short and Focused
We know it's easier said than done, but studies show that long and repetitive surveys cause respondent fatigue and result in poor-quality data.
Since each survey is different, there's no exact question limit. It's better to think in terms of time: try to keep it under 7–10 minutes.
If it must be longer, offer a good incentive—it can be crucial in such cases.
4. Include Screening Questions at the Beginning
If your study targets a specific audience, start with some classification questions to ensure only the right people respond.
These questions help filter out participants who don't meet your criteria before they proceed with the survey.
5. Be Consistent with Response Scales
If you use response scales (e.g., agree to disagree or 1 to 5), try to keep them consistent throughout the survey.
This avoids confusion and makes responses easier to compare and analyze.
6. Conduct a Pre-Test
Before officially launching your survey, test it with a small group of people.
This will help you identify confusing questions, wording errors, or technical issues and resolve them before reaching your full sample.
❌ What to Avoid When Writing Your Questions
Besides what you should do, there are also some practices to avoid:
1. Avoid Leading Questions
Ensure you don't write questions that suggest an answer or influence the respondent's opinion.
For example, instead of saying: "How much do you love our new product?" say "What do you think about our new product?"
2. Avoid Double-Barreled Questions
These are questions that ask two things at once.
For example: "Do you like our new website and would you recommend it to others?"
Split it into two separate questions to get clear answers.
3. Avoid Ambiguous or General Questions
Avoid terms like "frequently," "often," or "recently" without specifying what they mean.
It's better to use specific time frames or quantities.
With Netquest's Flash Survey, powered by SightX, creating effective surveys and obtaining valuable insights is easier (and faster) than ever!
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