The basic purpose of planning is to serve the public interest. This requires planning processes, methods, and tools that help planners better understand the communities they serve. Surveys, whether online or offline, can be powerful tools for gathering insights, but their accessibility and effectiveness hinges on their design.
Delve into practical strategies and design techniques — based on research and applied experience — that avoid some of the biggest pitfalls in survey design. Presentation topics include designing for your audience, survey format, survey length, types of questions, survey organization, and preparing to analyze survey results. These tips and tricks are tools to create surveys that reach a broader audience, support a greater level of participation, provide a two-way flow of information on key issues, and yield actionable results. Learn to collect the data necessary to understand community needs, make informed decisions, and advance advance equity in the community-planning process.
Learning Objectives:
Design surveys that are user-friendly, promote public trust in a project, provide meaningful insights, and support more equitable participation.
Avoid survey design pitfalls that result in confusion, reduced completion rates, or difficult-to-use data outputs.
Create surveys that are tailored to the purpose, audience, and desired outcomes of the project or engagement effort.