Nebraska Learns 2.0: Thing #37: Engaging Your Users with Polls and Surveys

Taking a cue from my colleague, Kathryn Brockmeier, who is offering a three-part online webinar series on conducting surveys, I thought it might be fun and useful to devote this month’s Thing to a review of some free web 2.0 tools that librarians can use to obtain feedback from their users.

As you’ve probably noticed, most discussions of Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 place great emphasis on the user. The following passage, excerpted from the “Library 2.0” article in Wikipedia on May 19, 2010, is a good case in point:

“With Library 2.0, library services are frequently evaluated and updated to meet the changing needs of library users. Library 2.0 also calls for libraries to encourage user participation and feedback in the development and maintenance of library services. The active and empowered library user is a significant component of Library 2.0. With information and ideas flowing in both directions – from the library to the user and from the user to the library – library services have the ability to evolve and improve on a constant and rapid basis. The user is participant, co-creator, builder and consultant – whether the product is virtual or physical.”

There are many informal ways to solicit and encourage feedback from users, especially given the social nature of many of the online tools and services we use (e.g., blogs, Facebook, Twitter). However, there are also plenty of tools designed for the express purpose of conducting surveys and polls. These are the tools we are going explore this month.

Why Conduct a Survey or Poll?

Surveys and polls are great ways to get direct user feedback on a wide variety of topics. Obviously you can use them to find out which of your current services users value most and want more of! Or to solicit feedback on past programming and suggestions for future programming! Or to learn what folks think of your web site!

You can also take a more whimsical approach by asking fun questions for the sole purpose of engaging your users. For example, if a popular book is being made in to a movie, ask visitors to your web site to submit the names of actors and actresses they’d like to see play particular characters. Or ask them to vote on which book series they’d most like to see turned in to a television series. Then, be sure to display sample results!

Surveys vs. Polls

So what is the difference between a survey and a poll? While it’s true that both are used to collect feedback from multiple respondents, there are some definite differences. Most significantly, surveys typically include multiple questions and take a longer time to complete, whereas polls often consist of a single question which can be answered in a minimal amount of time, possibly with a single mouse click.

Tools to Explore

There are numerous online survey and polling tools available on the Internet, offering a wide range of functionality at a wide range of prices. For the purposes of this exercise I will be asking you to choose one of the following three products, each of which offers basic functionality at no cost, to explore in more depth:

SurveyMonkey – SurveyMonkey offers a free Basic plan, a Pro plan for $19.95 per month, and an Unlimited plan for an annual cost of $200. For obvious reasons we will be looking at the free Basic plan. With this plan you can create as many surveys as you’d like, but you are limited to 10 questions and 100 responses per survey.

Responses can be solicited via email, a web link, or a website popup invitation. To see an example of a website popup invitation, visit my “Popup Survey” blog post. (Note: Cookie settings on users’ browsers may prevent invitations from popping up. For this reason it is always a good idea to link to your survey from your post/page! If you read through my blog post you will find a link to my survey!)

To get started with SurveyMonkey, go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/ and click on “Sign Up FREE” under the “Get Started Today! Basic Plan” heading. At this point you can either create a free SurveyMonkey account, or sign in with a pre-existing Google Account.

SurveyMonkey has created a series of tutorials to help you get started. If you decide to explore SurveyMonkey further, I recommend reviewing the following three tutorials:
- How to create a survey
- How to distribute your survey through collectors (web links, email invitations, and popup windows)
- How to analyze survey responses (see specifically the “Viewing Survey Responses” section which covers the Basic account options of viewing the response summary, browsing responses, and showing replies to open-ended questions)
When you review the various tutorials you will notice that skip logic (a process that directs respondents through different paths in the survey based on a response to a previous question) is not supported in the free Basic plan, nor are some of the more sophisticated reporting and analysis features. For a complete comparison of plan features, see the Detailed Features List.

Twtpoll – With Twtpoll you can create an unlimited number of polls and collect an unlimited number of responses for free. You can share your polls via Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, or email or embed them on your blog/website. You must have a Twitter account to create polls, but your responders don’t need one to respond.

To create a poll, go to http://twtpoll.com/ and click on the “Create a Poll” button. The simple poll-creation form asks you to input your Twitter name, select a question type (e.g., multiple choice), enter your question (140 character limit), list answer choices, and specify a closing date. You are also asked to choose whether to allow multiple votes per IP address. After completing the form click on the “Create a Poll” button :

After you click on “Create a Poll” you will be presented with a number of options for distributing your poll.

Twtpoll blog post

Twtsurvey

create one free survey

PollDaddy – The free version of PollDaddy allows you to create unlimited surveys, polls and ratings.
- Surveys – With a free account you can ask up to 10 questions per survey and collect 100 survey responses per month across all of your surveys. Skip logic (or conditional branching/question forking as it is called in PollDaddy) can also be applied by free account holders. To see skip logic in action, take my sample survey several times. Be sure to answer the first question differently each time!
- Polls – You can create as many polls as you’d like with your free account. Each poll consists of a single question, and a list of possible answers. You can limit poll takers to a single answer or allow them to select multiple answers. You can also give them the option of entering their own answers. Finally, you can choose whether or not to allow voters to see the poll results, and whether or not to allow them to easily share your poll via services like Facebook and Twitter, in order to drive more traffic to it.
  
  After creating a poll, you will be presented with multiple options for embedding or linking to it. The recommended method is to copy and paste JavaScript code into your website or blog. You can also copy a link to share via email, IM, or Twitter. Finally, if you plan on posting a variety of different polls to the same location over a period of time, consider embedding the code for a poll widget. Then, all you have to do when you want to change out your poll is log in to PollDaddy and assign a different poll to the widget. I used this method to post a poll to my blog.
- Ratings – This feature is still in beta. It allows you to create a 5-star ratings widget or a thumbs up / thumbs down ratings widget that can be posted to your website or blog. Like this.

Assignment

If you haven’t already done so, complete the following polls and surveys:
- Survey of Nebraska Learns 2.0 Participants (SurveyMonkey)
- How likely are you to purchase an eBook reader… (Twtpoll)
- PollDaddy Survey (with branching)
- What book should I read next? (PollDaddy Poll)

Now, using one of the services listed in “Tools,” create your own survey or poll. This survey or poll can be designed to collect serious feedback from staff or patrons, or it can be silly and lighthearted, aimed at family, friends, or fellow Nebraska Learns 2.0 participants. Post this survey/poll to your blog using one of the options provided to you by the service you used. If you find you are struggling with this step, at least include your survey/poll URL in your blog post so readers can get to it.

Finally write about your experience taking and creating surveys/polls as part of this Thing. Was it easier or harder than you thought it would be? Do you think survey and polling tools like these would be useful to your library? If so, in what ways? If not, why not?

For Those Wanting More Information (Optional):

To learn more about the theory and practice of designing, administering, and analyzing surveys, be sure to check out Kathryn Brockmeier’s three-part online webinar series on conducting surveys: