What is a survey?
A survey is a tool for collecting information and opinions from a group of people. For example, you can use a survey to gather feedback after an event, gather ideas for a community project, poll for when a group of people can get together, or collect data on what everyone’s favorite restaurant is. Let’s explore a variety of tools and use cases that demonstrate how to make a survey online.
A note that this article is geared towards individuals and small groups. If you are part of a business, surveys can be crucial to understanding your customer base. However, business-specific survey tools are generally geared towards marketing professionals and can cost quite a bit of money. We will not cover those use cases here.
How much does a survey tool cost?
Many survey tools offer a free tier of service, with a paid option on top (aka “freemium”). Outside of the free offering, most tools offer a paid subscription option. Paid features could include:
- The ability to remove ads from your survey page
- The ability to customize the survey look with your own branding/logo/colors
- The use of advanced survey features (like quizzes that calculate a score, rating systems, logic, and more)
There is a lot you can accomplish for free, and in this article, we are only exploring platforms that provide a free tier of service. However, please note that some features covered below may cost money on some platforms.
Survey question types
You might want to ask different types of questions on a survey, depending on what sort of data you are gathering. Here are several examples of survey question formats.
collecting contact information
If you need to identify each survey respondent and possibly get in touch with them later, you should add some fields to collect their name, email, and anything else if needed, like a mailing address.
If you would like your survey to gather anonymous feedback, you may not include these types of questions.
Example screenshot from Cognito Forms.
Multiple Choice
Many times, you would like users to select from a list of distinct options. This is called a multiple choice question. This can come in the form of check boxes, radio selectors, or a drop down menu.
You could offer an “other” selection, so survey-takers can suggest an idea outside of the given options.
Example Screenshot taken from Jotform.
Open response
Sometimes a question cannot be answered with a discrete multiple choice options. Giving users the freedom to respond with an open paragraph is a great way to get their full opinion about a topic.
Example screenshot from Google Forms.
Rating
Providing a rating system can help quantify feedback into a numerical value. If a rating system goes from 1 (poor) to 5 (great), the higher the average answer the better.
Screenshot taken from Survey Monkey (ratings are a paid feature on this platform)
Logic
Forms and Surveys can also include some logic. For example, if someone says yes to a question, they could be presented with more followup questions, but if the answer is No, the followup questions are hidden. Using logic in a survey is a paid feature on some platforms.
Example Screenshot of creating a “logic branch” from Typeform.
Sharing your survey
The typical steps for creating and sharing a survey are:
- Navigate to a survey tool’s website
- Create an account with them if you haven’t already, or sign in to your account
- Use their site to build, edit, and preview the survey you want
- Generate a link to share elsewhere (like over email or on social media)
This link that is generated will usually be public, meaning anyone in the world who sees this link could view and participate in your survey. Password-protected surveys are possible, but probably a paid feature. Therefore, don’t put your own contact information in the text of the survey. Ask participants to provide their email or other contact information, and you can get in touch with them directly after reading their responses.
There are more ways that just sharing a link, see the screenshot below from Survey Monkey. Paid options could include texting your survey link to a list of numbers, or even purchasing a contact list of survey respondents (which is something a marketing professional might be focused on).
After you create a public link, you should test it! You can enter a browser in Incognito Mode, paste in your survey link, and take the survey yourself to test it out before others see it.
survey results
What can you do with the results of your survey? Most tools will have a place to view the responses and aggregated survey results. You can view individual responses, or see overviews of each question. You can usually export the results in the form of a CSV (spreadsheet) to further work with them later. Example screenshot below taken from Jotform.
Some platforms may allow you to answer questions in their tool (like being able to filter for “Which type of food got the most votes for the company picnic?”). Some platforms, however may gate-keep that ability, and you will have to download the full set of data and look at it yourself, or in another spreadsheet tool like Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets.
Survey Tools
As we’ve already demonstrated, there are many tools available online to help conduct surveys. Here are just a few examples:
Multi-purpose Survey Tools
Google Forms
Included for free with a Google account (gmail) is access to the Google Forms tool. It’s very convenient to be able to utilize an existing gmail account, but these surveys are not very feature-rich, and Google Forms tend to have a specific look that has not changed in many years (which some users don’t care for). Check out SDM’s article about How to Create a Google Form for a deep dive on using Google Forms!
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey has been one of the biggest companies in the survey creating space for a long time. Over time, fewer features are allowed in the free tier, and more competitors have entered the space. However, if you create surveys often and like the ease-of-use in their interface, a paid or free subscription could still be the right choice for you.
…and many more tools
- Cognito Forms
- Jotform
- Typeform
- …and more come onto the scene constantly.
creating Polls within other apps
Many existing tools and social media platforms allow the creation of Polls. What’s the difference between Polls and Surveys? Polls are considered simpler, quicker data-collection methods. They may only ask a single question with a multiple choice answer, as opposed to a survey which could ask extensive questions and collect open paragraph responses.
Facebook Groups
Facebook lets users create polls in two places: Stories, and Groups. Below are some screenshots of what it looks like in a group. Where you would create a post in the group, you can select poll. You can decide if the survey-takers get to suggest another answer of their own, or if you want to limit it to the original options you wrote.
When posting on LinkedIn, you can poll your audience. Select the graph icon while making a post (you may have to click a three-dots menu to view this option).
More examples of Platforms that use Polls
- Zoom lets you poll meeting participants while the call is in progress (with paid accounts)
- Polls are available in the Stories section of both Facebook and Instagram
- Canva has a Poll creator.
- WhatsApp group chats let you create polls
- …and many more!
Other specific use cases
There are certain tools designed with specific use cases in mind. Here are just a few examples:
Scheduling a group
Instead of collecting opinions, you may want to get a group of people to agree on a date and time for a gathering. This brings a specific calendar/time of day selection requirement to the job. Just a few of the tools that were designed with this in mind: Doodle, Rallly, Polendar, and Framadate, but there are many options out there.
Example screenshot taken from Rallly
Group scheduling is also built into other tools (though it may be a premium/paid feature). For example, you can use a “matrix” object in SurveyMonkey to make your own version of a date/time picker.
Signing up for specific time slots
Signup Genius is a tool created specifically to let people select time slots. It’s very good at what it needs to do functionally. Unfortunately, in the free tier, the page is covered with random ads for everyone filling out the survey. It might be worth paying to make the experience better for the users. Example Screenshot below from Signup Genius.
Collecting payment
Survey tools can be a vehicle for collecting registrations. CognitoForms, SurveyMonkey, and many others are survey tools which can accept payment. Some platforms include payments as a feature of their paid subscriptions, while others allow you to accept payment on a “free” survey, but there will be an extra fee taken out of each transaction (on top of a typical credit card processing fee).
Collecting Sensitive data
If you are a private medical practice, you may need to send intake surveys to patients. There are specific tools that claim to be HIPPA compliant. NOTE: SDM is not an expert in HIPPA, we cannot answer questions about whether your methods are fully compliant.
Here’s an article about creating HIPPA compliant forms in Cognito Forms: “How to Create HIPPA-Compliant Patient Intake Forms”
How do I choose a survey tool?
The first questions to ask yourself are “Who is my target audience?” and “Do I already have an account that has a survey tool?”
If you’re trying to plan dinner with a group of friends who are all on WhatsApp, you could use the polling tool in there.
Or, perhaps you’re trying to gather opinions from a group of people who are all on an email thread and you already have a google account, so you could use google forms and email out a survey link.
If you want to spread a survey out to the general public, and you want it to look professional, you could opt for a paid account in one of these tools, and add your business logo and specially designed questions.
Here are some links to tools that were mentioned or used for screenshots in this post. Please know this is not an exhaustive list, and new tools are popping up all the time. If you’re starting a new project, it’s probably worth an internet search! General survey tools: Survey Monkey, Google Forms, Jotform, Cognito Forms, Typeform. Calendar-specific tools: Doodle, Rallly. Polling: Canva Poll Creator, Polls in Zoom Meetings. Time slots: Signup Genius.
conclusion
Surveys are a useful and versatile tool. As you begin to create a survey make sure to:
- Start by asking yourself “What information do I want this survey to gather for me?” and “Who do I want to take this survey?”
- Note any big feature needs (like accepting payments, utilizing a calendar, labeling the survey with your own logo, etc)
- Set a budget (you can get very far with free tools for many use cases)
- See if you have access to anything that can gather the information already, like WhatsApp polls in an existing group chat, or using Google Forms with your existing gmail account.
If you want to ask further questions or explore survey tools deeper with some help, just call or email. We’re happy to assist you! Feel free to use our contact form to send us a message. Thank you!
