On-line surveys
On-line surveys are an effective means of collecting large amounts of qualitative and quantitative data quickly and easily by directly asking respondents about their attitudes and behaviour, when generalizations or inferences about larger samples are required.
Surveys can be conducted at almost any stage of product development, but they are especially effective as a complement to small-sample qualitative methods; for example, when investigating insights revealed in usability or field studies. As such, they can be used both to validate qualitative findings to understand how prevalent the goals, behaviors or attitudes identified via small-sample qualitative methods are within the larger population, and also to inform the areas of focus of studies performed later in the design lifecycle.
Sophisticated on-line survey tools can be used to conduct on-line "experiments" in which, for example, alternative designs can be compared by allocating them to subsets of respondents in an otherwise identical survey, and comparing the responses using statistical-analysis techniques. Thus, "A-B" tests and desirability studies can be conducted efficiently and validly.
UXagility has designed, developed and analysed the results from dozens of on-line surveys for a variety of clients in several different verticals, with particular expertise in Confirmit.