Chapter 14: A Critical Analysis of Most Popular Online Survey Software from a Design Perspective

Online surveys are popular among the researchers due to their cost-effectiveness, speed of delivery and response, ability to conduct large-scale data collection, and ease of data cleaning and analysis processes (Couper, 2000; Sills & Song, 2002). However, humans’ cognitive limitations should also be taken into consideration when designing online surveys to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the instrument (Andrews et al., 2007). As pointed out by Dillman (2000), poorly designed online surveys increase the likelihood of response error and encourage novice web-users to break off the survey process.

Previous studies of online survey design suggested various design practices to maximize the survey response rate. For example, including visuals and graphics in the survey (Couper et al., 2004; Deutskens et al., 2004), using personalized invitation e-mails (Cook et al., 2000), allowing respondents to select the language of the survey to complete (Barreto et al., 2018), and stating the average time to complete the survey (McPeake et al., 2014) are some effective strategies.