Question wording in a survey can impact responses. That shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Ask a different question and you’ll get a different answer. But just how different the response ends up being depends on how a question has changed. Subtle differences can have big impacts; alternatively, large differences can have little impact. It’s
In an earlier article, we reviewed five competing models of delight. The models differed in their details, but most shared the general idea that delight is composed of an unexpected positive experience. Or, for the most part, delight is a pleasant surprise. However, there is disagreement on whether you actually need surprise to be delighted.
While customer satisfaction may be thought of as one concept, there’s isn’t a single “official” way to measure it. By one estimate there are more than 40 instances of different customer satisfaction scales described in the published literature. That, in part, is a consequence of how common satisfaction is as a measure. Satisfaction is measured on
In an earlier article, we examined the folk wisdom that three-point scales were superior to those with more, such as five, seven, ten, or eleven response options. Across twelve published studies we found little to suggest that three-point scales were better than scales with more points and, in fact, found evidence to show that they
Five-point scales are the best. No, seven points. Never use a ten-point scale. Eleven points “pretend noise is science.” You never need more than three points. Few things seem to elicit more opinions (and misinformation) in measurement than the “right” number of scale points to use in a rating scale response option. For example, here
Should you label all points on a scale? Should you include a neutral point? What about labeling neutral points? How does that affect how people respond? These are common questions when using rating scales and they’ve also been asked about the Net Promoter Score: What are the effects of having a neutral label on the
It seems like each year introduces a new measure or questionnaire. Like a late-night infomercial, some are even touted as the next BIG thing, like the NPS was. New questionnaires and measures are a natural part of the evolution of measurement (especially measuring difficult things such as human attitudes). It’s a good thing. I’ll often
In an earlier article, I described the PURE methodology. PURE stands for Practical Usability Rating by Experts. Evaluators familiar with UX principles and heuristics decompose tasks into small steps and rate each step based on a pre-defined scoring system (called a rubric), as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: Scoring rubric for PURE. The PURE
It seems like there are endless ways to ask questions of participants in surveys. Variety in question types can be both a blessing and a curse. Having many ways to ask questions provides better options to the researcher to assess the opinion of the respondent. But the wrong type of question can fail to capture
What does 4.1 on a 5-point scale mean? Or 5.6 on a 7-point scale? Interpreting rating scale data can be difficult in the absence of an external benchmark or historical norms. A popular technique used often by marketers to interpret rating scale data is the so-called “top box” and “top-two box” scoring approach. For example, on
