MeasuringU

Comparing Fully vs. Partially Labeled Five- and Seven-Point Scales

By Jeff Sauro, PhD and Jim Lewis, PhD . January 21, 2020 . Tags: Rating Scales, Satisfaction, UX

In our earlier article, Jim Lewis and I reviewed the published literature on labeling scales. Despite some recommendations and “best practice” wisdom, we didn’t find that fully labeled scales were measurably superior to partially labeled scales across the 17 published studies that we read. In reviewing the studies in more detail, we found many had confounding effects when comparing between full labeling and partial labeling—meaning

Should All Scale Points Be Labeled?

By Jeff Sauro, PhD and Jim Lewis, PhD . January 7, 2020 . Tags: Rating Scales, Rating Scale, Surveys

To have a reliable and valid response scale, people need to understand what they’re responding to. A poorly worded question, an unclear response item, or an inadequate response scale can create additional error in measurement. Worse yet, the error may be systematic rather than random, so it would result in unmodeled bias rather than just increased measurement variability. Rating scales have many forms, with variations

Five Scales to Measure Customer Satisfaction

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . October 1, 2019 . Tags: Rating Scales, Satisfaction

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 more than just brands, products, and features. It’s used to

Effects of Labeling the Neutral Response in the NPS

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . March 5, 2019 . Tags: Net Promoter Score, Rating Scales, Survey

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 11-point Likelihood to Recommend (LTR) item used to compute the

Practical Tips for Running a PURE Evaluation

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . August 21, 2018 . Tags: PURE, Rating Scales, Usability

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. [table id=30 /] Figure 1: Scoring rubric for PURE. The PURE method is analytic. It’s not based on

15 Common Rating Scales Explained

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . August 14, 2018 . Tags: Rating Scales, Rating Scale, Surveys

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’s intended, confuse respondents, or even lead to incorrect decisions.

Reducing the Noise in Your Net Promoter Analysis

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . December 19, 2017 . Tags: Net Promoter Score, Rating Scales

A good measure of customer loyalty should be valid, reliable, and sensitive to changes in customer attitudes. For the most part, the Net Promoter Score achieves this (although it does have its drawbacks). One area the Net Promoter Score lacks in is how its scoring approach adds “noise” to the customer loyalty signal. The process of subtracting detectors from promoters may be “executive friendly” but

5 Things to Know about Likert Scales

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . July 14, 2015 . Tags: Rating Scales

You've seen them. You've answered them. It seems like everyone has an opinion about them. Here are five things to know about the famous Likert scale. (One for each response option!) The Likert scale was developed and named after psychologist Rensis Likert. The now ubiquitous Likert scale consists of multiple items. Participants are asked to rate their level of agreement to items that describe a

Are Men Overconfident Users?

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . June 12, 2012 . Tags: Confidence, Rating Scales

There are some interesting known differences between men and women in the psychological literature. For example, women tend to be better judges of emotion when looking at faces for just 0.2 of a second[pdf]! And across many measures of ability, while both men and women tend to exhibit overconfidence, men are generally more overconfident than women and this is especially the case when men do

Rating Scales

by Jeff Sauro, PhD and Jim Lewis, PhD | January 21, 2020

Browse Content by Topic

Comparing Fully vs. Partially Labeled Five- and Seven-Point Scales

By Jeff Sauro, PhD and Jim Lewis, PhD . January 21, 2020 . Tags: Rating Scales, Satisfaction, UX

Should All Scale Points Be Labeled?

By Jeff Sauro, PhD and Jim Lewis, PhD . January 7, 2020 . Tags: Rating Scales, Rating Scale, Surveys

Five Scales to Measure Customer Satisfaction

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . October 1, 2019 . Tags: Rating Scales, Satisfaction

Effects of Labeling the Neutral Response in the NPS

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . March 5, 2019 . Tags: Net Promoter Score, Rating Scales, Survey

Practical Tips for Running a PURE Evaluation

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . August 21, 2018 . Tags: PURE, Rating Scales, Usability

15 Common Rating Scales Explained

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . August 14, 2018 . Tags: Rating Scales, Rating Scale, Surveys

Reducing the Noise in Your Net Promoter Analysis

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . December 19, 2017 . Tags: Net Promoter Score, Rating Scales

5 Things to Know about Likert Scales

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . July 14, 2015 . Tags: Rating Scales

Are Men Overconfident Users?

By Jeff Sauro, PhD . June 12, 2012 . Tags: Confidence, Rating Scales