Questionnaires – How effective

From usability perspective, Surveys and Questionnaires are tools used to enlist information from users for evaluating or collecting design input for a task, process or system (” A questionnaire is a method for the elicitation, and recording, and collecting of information -Jurek Kirakowski, Questionnaires in Usability Engineering”). Questionnaires and surveys hold importance since these provide qualitative and quantitive information in the exact format the evaluator plans.

All said, dobt regarding validity of questionnaires are often raised. Are questionnaires effective tools?

How accurate can a questionaire or survey be for design input,
Should we use questionnaire/ survey methods to drive design input. Most of the time design input is driven by facts. Quesitonnaires and feedback elicitation methods can often err by saying something that might be a lot about background noise rather than actual task.

The yes or NO likert scale – why does it really mean to users,
In a brainstroming excercize i conducted users acknowledged thier answers actually meant – They are positive, negative or indifferent (score randomly to get rid of the form)

Should questionaires have other formats of data entry,
It might almost sound like putting words in the users mouth, but what if questions were designed to input pre-defined choices instead of 1 – 10/ Hate love matrix

My Experience,
Questionnaires were one of the most despicable thing for me as a student, as an applicant for services. The max i could enter in a form with good detail of attention was about 4 questions, after that urgency to complete and get 0ut of it took over.

Thankfully I don’t come across questionnaires that often. A few days back i got an oppurtunity to fill a quesitonaire, i was glad that it gave me an opportunity to experience the phenomenom as a user – after long long time. I filled atleast 10 pages and finally left mid-way dis-oriented.

Resources – Questionaire,

• Link: Questionaires types:
  Contains links for sample questionaires based on – QUIS, PUEU, NAU, NHE, CSUQ, ASQ, PHUE, PUTQ (acronyms are usable:) )
• Link: Questionnaires in Usability Engineering
• Link: Usability measurement and Questionnaires