A true survey answers much more than just the questions at hand; it must guide the user in answering the overall research objective you are solving for.
To have a successful survey, the questions asked must all be relevant to the research objective you are trying to answer and be diversified enough to cover all aspects of the research question. A good measure to ensure your survey is on the right track is to have the research question at hand when developing each of the potential questions. This will allow you to ask yourself if the question is relevant and useful towards the objective. On the same note, it is important that there are a variety of questions geared toward the entirety of the objective at hand and not too focused on one topic.
For example, let’s say Tarte Cosmetics is trying to measure customer stratification with the launch of their new travel-size collection items. According to their website, they are introducing new travel-size tubing mascara, sculpt contour, highlighter, and blush. So, Tarte creates an eight-question survey for customers who buy from the collection, and four have to do with blush shades and preferences, two have to do with contour usage, and two apply to demographic and online purchasing – what is wrong with the survey? It is completely dismissing the consumers who bought the highlighter and mascara and not taking the research objective as a whole. There must be enough questions to cover the entirety of whatever the company is trying to test in order to get accurate and relevant results.
Not only will a bad survey miss key questions, but they may have way too many questions! Time is valuable: as a researcher, it is imperative to treasure the attention and time any participant is giving you and ensure you capture their meaningful responses with surveys that are concise but to the point. With that said, the questions need to be an appropriate length to cover your research objective but not be overbearing to the user. Crafting a thoughtful plan ensures hitting all the right marks and is crucial to having a good survey so you can give accurate, useful, and reliable results to your client.