People Aren’t Robots: A practical guide to the psychology and technique of questionnaire design

Newly revised in 2024! The 5th edition now includes how to leverage artificial intelligence in your survey design process and how to create fun and playful question styles. Why this survey book: “People aren’t Robots” gets to the point right away. Learn what you need to know to build better surveys now with specific instructions, examples, and only the theory you need to know. Learn how to gather great quality data even though people who answer surveys are fallible and imperfect, not robots. Learn specific tactics to generate better response rates, completion rates, and data quality resulting in better quality business decisions from your survey data. Learn how to write fun and engaging questionnaires that people want to finish and look forward to answering again. Convenient size to tuck in your pocket or purse, and learn on-the-go on the plane, train, or metro. Includes a forward by Pravin Shekar, the Outlier Marketer and Former Interim CEO of ESOMAR Who will benefit: Marketers, brand managers, and advertising executives who need to write surveys that will help them deeply understand retail, customer, consumer, and shopper behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and opinions. Community, social, academic, and experienced researchers in government, economics, education, psychology, sociology, anthropology, communications, and more. Founders, entrepreneurs, and start-up leaders who need surveys that will accurately identify white spaces, untapped markets, and innovation niches. DIY and self-directed researchers who want to create higher quality surveys using tools like SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, Jotform, and Google Forms People who have minimal or no experience with research but need to write surveys that will answer key questions. Questionnaire design topics include: Basic survey principles and guidelines Respectful and inclusive language so people will want to finish your survey Using artificial intelligence to generate better questions and answers Creating fun and engaging questions that people enjoy answering Target audience screener questions so you won’t pay for completes you can’t use Data quality questions, e.g., red herrings, straightlining, satisficing, Common question design problems, e.g., question length, opt-outs, bias Quantitative questions, e.g., closed-ends, single-selects, multi-selects, grids, scales, ranks, ratings, sums Qualitative questions, e.g., open-ends, verbatims Sensitive questions, e.g., income, ethnicity, disabilities, unethical, illegal activities Demographic questions, e.g., age, region, education, and employment