I participated in a phone survey last night about local newspapers. It was conducted by a college student, which is one of the reasons I agreed to take the time. They survey was obviously conducted for the local daily paper in my community. While I was pleased they were gathering customer feedback and looking for ways to improve, I was struck by how the survey revealed the shortcomings of the thinking that went into designing it.
I see two mistakes that the designers of this survey made. First, while they were obviously focusing on their online presence, they seemed to be treating their website mostly as a newspaper that they don't need to print. The survey only focused on newspaper features and content that is currently in the printed version and how those features and content would translate to an electronic version. There were no questions about the value of archives, interactive stories, links to other news sources, or other features that would be unique to an Internet-based newspaper.
The second, and in my mind greater, mistake is that I was not given any opportunity to provide additional thoughts and input. What a shame to have me thinking about and focusing on their newspaper for 20 minutes (candidly more time than it takes me to read the paper in the morning) and not gather my thoughts and comments. What a shame to not to gather the unique insights I have as a reader or non-reader. What a shame to spend all that time (and money) to only go 80% of the way. All it takes is a simple question: "Do you have any other comments or thoughts?" Better yet, ask open-ended questions within the survey. The information you get is not quantifiable and can't be converted to a pretty graph, but can shed amazing insights.
Anything else?
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