Quantitative Research
11/29/09
Research gone wrong
When conducting surveys, I often say that the best survey is one where 80 percent of the figures match your guess and 20 percent of the figures surprise you. Why? Well, you hope to learn something new, hence the 20 percent. But you also hope that a good proportion of the survey matches your view […]
By Kevin RainesRead More
10/25/09
Representative sampling
While working in a Boulder, CO coffee shop, this post reminded me of the importance of making sure your sample is representative of whomever it is you want to learn more about. Looking around, it would seem like Mac has a very healthy market share (I’m one of the sole PC users here), but of […]
By David KennedyRead More
7/13/09
Avoid pie
… charts, that is. We’ve had some “debates” here at the office about the best types of graphs, charts, or other visual means of portraying data (Word clouds anyone?). We even had a few posts (here and here) last year when we disagreed with Seth Godin’s three laws of graphs. I was amused when I […]
By David KennedyRead More
4/27/09
How to rank – Four tips for smarter ranking questions
Have you ever taken a survey that asked you to rank a list? Maybe it was just a few items. Maybe it was many more. I was recently asked to rank a LONG list of attributes on a survey which quickly became an exercise in futility. When ranking nearly 20 items, can you really decipher […]
By David KennedyRead More
3/30/09
Timeliness of surveys
I was going through my mail last night and discovered a survey from the manufacturer of my car. Since survey research is a major part of my work, I figured it would be good Karma to take it. I happily started the survey and realized it was supposed to be about my most recent visit […]
By David KennedyRead More
2/26/09
A great graph or a horrible graph?
We love our graphs here at Corona. Analysts have gotten into brawls over them (ok, not really). The other day, someone showed me this graph out of an advertisement for, what else, but using a specific direct mail service for advertising. At first, we made fun of the graph. It looked utterly useless, had no […]
By David KennedyRead More
2/18/09
Seth’s five tips for better online surveys
How to improve online surveys? Ask anyone that creates or takes surveys and you’ll probably get an opinion. We’ve even chimed in on the topic in the past. (And on another Seth post.) Seth Godin recently posted Five tips for better online surveys, and, as usual, we have our own two cents to contribute. 1. Every […]
By David KennedyRead More
1/27/09
What are we weighting for?
Let’s say that you just conducted a public survey of your community for a community needs assessment. In your community, 29% of residents are between age 18 and 34, and 29% are age 55 or older. Yet among your survey respondents, 8% are aged 18-34, while 52% are aged 55 or older (this is a […]
By Beth MulliganRead More
1/19/09
Tradeoffs between survey length and cooperation
In a previous post we discussed how survey length can indirectly drive up participation recruitment costs. Another often-ignored consequence of long surveys is poor quality data that may or may not be easy to identify. Even conscientious participants lose the desire to be cooperative as a survey drags on. By the sixth page, or the […]
By Beth MulliganRead More
1/12/09
The not so ultimate question?
In a recent edition of Quirk’s Marketing Research Review, there was an article (Article ID: 20081004….requires registration, but it is free) on the Net Promoter Score (NPS). The NPS has long been touted by many as the best way to measure customer satisfaction, and a key characteristic of the system is its simplicity. In case you […]
By David KennedyRead More