100 THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT DESIGN  |  JULY 21, 2020

100 THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT DESIGN
JULY 21, 2020

8. Conducting User Research with Surveys

8. Conducting User Research with Surveys

The Survey, another amazing research technique for gathering User Requirements. Especially when you’re short on time and lacking the budget for research. I.e. EVERY design project. 

The Survey, another amazing research technique for gathering User Requirements. Especially when you’re short on time and lacking the budget for research. I.e. EVERY design project. 

Why use Surveys? 

The reason I love surveys and tend to make them a part of most my UX design projects is the simplicity. In just a few hours you can create, share and gather quantitative data with a survey. Especially with the survey tools out there, which we’ll talk about later.

Now the reason turnaround is so quick on surveys is because they don’t require a moderator (like the User Interview) or even being in he same place as the participants. Instead you can simply prepare your list of questions and send participants a link where they can fill out the survey. 
 

When to use Surveys

Surveys are especially valuable for gathering quantitative data. That means quantity, numbers and stat-based insights. I like to think of quantitative data as “the what”. 

Research techniques like User Interviews on the other hand paint a much more qualitative picture about of your users. And I describe this data as “the why”. 

Here are some examples to help you further understand the distinction. 

"80% of people prefer to buy shoes offline."

Is this Quantitative or Qualitative? If you guessed Quantitative you’re absolutely correct. And this is the type of data you can easily pull using Surveys. Let’s look at another example: 

"People like to buy shoes offline because they can try them on."

Quantitative or Qualitative? If you guessed Quantitative you’re absolutely incorrect. This one is Qualitative. And you’d typically get an insight like this from User Interviews where you’re really pulling back the layers to understand user habits and “the why” behind these habits.
 

Who should you Survey?

Put simply, find people that match the characteristics of the people that will use your product. The users, if you will. Now you should have a clear idea of who these users are and if you don’t, you need sit down and define these users with your stakeholders. The Stakeholder Interview is a good technique for this.

How do you find participants? 

Now I mentioned before that there are a lot of powerful survey tools out there. One of them is Survey Monkey and the great thing about this specific tool is that it offers you a service for finding participants. You just plug in your demographic information and Survey Monkey takes care of the rest. 

Tools for conducting Surveys

I mentioned Survey Monkey already, I also love TypeForm for its simplicity and Google Forms is very solid too. In my Online User Experience Design Course, I walk students through the process of creating a survey on Google Forms and include a few sample survey questions for reference.

Why use Surveys? 

The reason I love surveys and tend to make them a part of most my UX design projects is the simplicity. In just a few hours you can create, share and gather quantitative data with a survey. Especially with the survey tools out there, which we’ll talk about later.

Now the reason turnaround is so quick on surveys is because they don’t require a moderator (like the User Interview) or even being in he same place as the participants. Instead you can simply prepare your list of questions and send participants a link where they can fill out the survey. 
 

When to use Surveys

Surveys are especially valuable for gathering quantitative data. That means quantity, numbers and stat-based insights. I like to think of quantitative data as “the what”. 

Research techniques like User Interviews on the other hand paint a much more qualitative picture about of your users. And I describe this data as “the why”. 

Here are some examples to help you further understand the distinction. 

"80% of people prefer to buy shoes offline."

Is this Quantitative or Qualitative? If you guessed Quantitative you’re absolutely correct. And this is the type of data you can easily pull using Surveys. Let’s look at another example: 

"People like to buy shoes offline because they can try them on."

Quantitative or Qualitative? If you guessed Quantitative you’re absolutely incorrect. This one is Qualitative. And you’d typically get an insight like this from User Interviews where you’re really pulling back the layers to understand user habits and “the why” behind these habits.
 

Who should you Survey?

Put simply, find people that match the characteristics of the people that will use your product. The users, if you will. Now you should have a clear idea of who these users are and if you don’t, you need sit down and define these users with your stakeholders. The Stakeholder Interview is a good technique for this. 
 

How do you find participants? 

Now I mentioned before that there are a lot of powerful survey tools out there. One of them is Survey Monkey and the great thing about this specific tool is that it offers you a service for finding participants. You just plug in your demographic information and Survey Monkey takes care of the rest. 

Tools for conducting Surveys

I mentioned Survey Monkey already, I also love TypeForm for its simplicity and Google Forms is very solid too. In my Online User Experience Design Course, I walk students through the process of creating a survey on Google Forms and include a few sample survey questions for reference.

Get started with our online UX course.

Get started with our online UX course.