A Beginners Guide to Surveys & Research

A Beginner’s Guide to
Research & Surveys
Understanding the principles and methodologies for
conducting research & surveys.
Abhishek Kumar
CPO, Searchtrack.co

Overview
Why do we Conduct Research?
Understanding Context
Designing a Survey
Designing a Questionnaire
Capturing Design Research
Analyzing Design Research
Tools//Offline
Tools//Online
Making the best of these tools
Q&A
2hr

How can you make the best of your
learning’s from this class?
Setting the right mental framework for research
Understanding key starting points to learn further
Developing a basic appreciation of Design Research

Why do we conduct
Research?
Identifying Problem Areas
Understanding the market
Identifying & understanding the end-users
Validating Ideas
Setting realistic/impactful goals
Gaining insights on promoting & developing brand appeal
Qualitative & Quantitative understanding of the world around us

Qualitative Research Methods
Used to gain insights about certain behaviors & patterns.
Focus Groups, in-person interviews & Questionnaires are
some examples.
Quantitative Research Methods
It involves analyzing data sets, statistics and other
information to map facts. It also utilizes polls and list-
surveys to compile that quantitative data.
Quantitative vs Qualitative

Stakeholder Interviews
Understanding the perspectives ,history, vision, contexts &
concerns of the key stakeholders. They can be business
owners, employees who interact with users or anyone
who’s a key part of the product lifecycle.
Domain Research
Every domain brings its unique set of challenges.
Understanding them & developing coping/dealing
strategies in early stage goes a long way to make your
design more and more impactful.
End User Interviews
No one has ever designed a great product without taking
into account the end user first. These interviews are crucial
and can deliver some unique insights to help you develop
more realistic and in-sync output in your work.
Key Design Research Steps

Understanding Context
Understanding motives
Staying unbiased
Causal Loops
Being Sensitive

Don’t let your pre-conceived biases come in the way

Causal Loops : Paying attention to how things are inter-dependent

Developing sensitivity & empathy towards your end users goes a long way

Observation may seem like a simple skill, but it
can be clouded by Unconscious Biases

Designing a Survey
What to keep in mind when designing a survey

• Establish the Goals
• Determine your Sample (Heterogeneous)
• Choose your Survey Method:
o Personal Interview
o Telephone Surveys
o Mails/Emails
o Direct Device based/ Web based
• Speed
• Cost
• Internet Penetration
• Literacy Levels
• Sensitive Questions
• Use of Video/Sound/Graphics
ConsiderationsSteps:

Designing a Questionnaire
Qualitative vs Quantitative

• Multiple Choice
• Numeric Open-ended
• Text Open-ended
Types of Questionnaires
• Rating Scales
• Agreement Scales
Scale based
Answer based

• Ordering of the questions
• Leave difficult questions at the end
• Keep the flow smooth and easy to grasp
• Avoid “Habituation”
• Keep it Short
• Give titles, images & short intros
• Cover all angles when giving answering options
• Always Pre-test your questionnaire
Things to keep in Mind

Capturing & Analyzing Design
Research
Descripting Research (What’s going on?)
Explanatory Research (Why is it going on?)

Descriptions can be concrete or abstract. Good descriptions are crucial.
• Understand the market/community
• Collect data on the past and current trends of a certain community
• Informative data collection. Visualize it.
• Summarize at the end of each trend
• Quantitative Research
What is going on?
Descriptive Research
Methods of studying:

Its one thing to quantify something, it’s totally another to find the “why” behind it.
Why is it going on?
Explanatory Research
Methods of studying:
• Take the summary(From the earlier research) and understand the reasons of
the same
• The qualitative research comes under a part of explanatory research
• Field Surveys, Focus Groups, Groundwork

Theory Building Approach
Theory Testing Approach

Tools//Offline
Field Surveys
Interviews
Focus Groups

Tools//Online
Google Forms
Survey Monkey
Emailers
Custom Web Surveys

Making the Best of these tools
//Offline
Field Surveys
Interviews
Focus Groups
//Online
Google Forms
Survey Monkey
Emailers

Q&A
abhishek@searchtrack.co
@abhishekonine

A Beginners Guide to Surveys & Research

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