DIY SOS
Posted by Vovici Blog on Thu, Apr 14, 2011
DIY SOS is a British TV show that features on every episode a do-it-yourself home construction project gone wrong. Fortunately, professional designers and builders swoop in on camera to make it right! This makes for compelling viewing, as the show has been on the air since 1999.
Sadly, when Do-It-Yourself survey researchers send up an SOS, it is typically too late. By the time they realize something is wrong, they have already collected hundreds or even thousands of survey responses. Most of their mistakes were errors of questionnaire design: bad question wording, confusing rating scales, incomplete choice lists, faulty skip logic, no open-ended questions and so on. Sometimes they even surveyed the wrong list.
As a result, just like that home remodel gone awry, you have to rip out everything and start again. The do-it-yourselfer should always ask a researcher to review the questionnaire before they send it out, and once the survey is set up, they should self-test, pre-test and pilot test. In companies using enterprise feedback management systems, make sure to use assisted survey author roles for those employees whose surveys you absolutely want to review before they go live.
What’s that old carpentry saying? “Measure twice, cut once.” Unfortunately, salvaging a poor DIY survey often requires you to measure twice by surveying people twice. And that doesn’t make for compelling viewing.
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