The double-edged sword of surveys

Is anyone else feeling a tad overwhelmed by surveys or feedback requests of all kinds?

• Rate my app
• Fill out this NPS (“Will you recommend …”)
• Was this useful
• We would appreciate your feedback to make our service better

As a digital product designer I must admit that I’m hungry for any and all data that I can get my hands on. I mean, how can I confidently make informed design decisions unless I have data? Further, data is expensive to get unless it is given to me freely.

The problem is though that you’re one off, single-question, tiny widget or email requesting my attention is now part of a tsunami of requests for my feedback that I get multiple times a day.

What triggered this missive is getting a “feedback request email” from my brand new doctor. Really? Feedback request for my doctor? It is so small and by itself so innocuous, but in aggregate of every airline, hotel, restaurant, software application, mobile application, software service, etc. that I use it is just too much.

What makes this so much worse is how inactionable survey results really are.

1. They are 100% self-reporting. This usually means that if people bother it is only b/c they have had a peak experience (positive or negative). This means all the data from the middle is underrepresented.
2. Surveys are 9-times out of 10 horribly designed. Leading, or asking generic questions whose unstructured data require expertise in order to evaluate properly.
3. Survey design seldom has follow through for further learning. Way too often they are used as an ends, as opposed to a means of determining where better data collection is required.

What is better than intercepting people out of their flow of their regular life and asking them to volunteer their valuable attention, is to provide, clear channels of open, trustworthy, and responsive communication of clear intent and interest in the person giving their attention. Juxtapose this to the data-cattle we are usually meant to feel like out in this survey blizzard we currently live in.

While most feedback tools offer intercept tools, be careful. As the great Ani DiFranco once said, “Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.” There are indeed times where well planned, strategic uses of intercepts or email requests for user attention are the right path. But design them from the user’s perspective. Be sure that you have a complete plan for not just using the data you collect, but analyzing it, having a follow up plan and most importantly make the user understand the value this data will for them. Be cautious when your data is too strong in any direction. Both false-positives and false-negatives are rampant in self-reporting studies.

I don’t imagine a world where requests for feedback will go away any time soon. Heck, in all honesty I use them regularly in my work. They are just too easy to ignore. But I call on CX, SD, UX, and Product Management professionals to take at least one course on survey writing and analysis, and to be clear about the value you will get, how you will get it, and how it will impact a complete user who honestly has 1 million more experiences a day without your service than with it. You are not just competing for attention within this system, but you need to be designing for the realities of it. Living within its flow, and acknowledging your customers as holistic humans.