[IxDA Discuss] Asking questions to participants in a positiveor negative way ?

[Caroline Jarrett]

Caroline said :

> The only way to find out is to interview some users to get a feeling for the types and ranges of opinions that they do have. Then
> you construct your questions. Then you test your questionnaire, and interview the test participants about it. By this point you 
> have
> a good chance of getting a decent questionnaire put together and that's  half the battle of a survey.
>
Chiwah replied:

: Thank you for your answer. Our marketing department, with whom I am trying to work with doesn't do any one-on-one user research 
before creating a questionnaire. They just ask client what they want to be measured, reformulate it and the questionnaire is done!

: For the test, they just give it to us and we have to validate it… Which is not really a test..

: Doing one on one user research first could be very time-consuming, what argument could I say to prove to both the client and the 
marketing team that it worth the value ?

You are where you are. I'd consider incorporating the marketing questionnaire as part of the test. I'd ask the participants to fill 
in the questionnaire for me but get them to explain to me, question by question, what the question meant to them, why they were 
picking the answers, if they felt the question was appropriate and whether you should have asked any different questions. Video it 
all.

Maybe your marketing department is correct, in which case you'll get plenty of good material to flatter them with in the future and 
that will all help the working relationship. Maybe they aren't as correct as they hope, in which case you can go back to them and 
say: "Your questionnaire was great but we did have these minor difficulties with it here, here and here. Maybe next time we could do 
a couple of interviews with users first of all?"

Warning: even if it's true, avoid going back to the marketing department with a message like: "I told you your questionnaire 
approach was all wrong and here's the evidence to prove it". That's a recipe for defensiveness, rejection, and all sorts of other 
bad stuff.

As for time-consuming: it never ceases to amaze me that I meet such resistance to doing even a couple of informal interviews with 
users (say, half a day max) whereas organisations think nothing of sending out 1000 questionnaires just like that. Or even sending 
questionnaires to all their users!!! Strange, isn't it?

Caroline Jarrett
caroline.jarrett at effortmark.co.uk
07990 570647

Effortmark Ltd
Usability - Forms - Content

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