SurveyGizmo Updates - Now 40% faster!

We have some great news to share. We have installed a PHP accelerator called eAccelerator and it’s given us a real boost. We have seen a +40% increase in both the SurveyBuilder application and the speed of surveys to end users. Woo hoo! We are really happy about this and we’re sure you will be too. Our development team has another change rolling out this week to hyper-accellerate really large surveys & questionnaires.

Another upgrade we’ve added is a Survey Preview toolbar. You can now jump between survey pages without having to fill them out. There is a refresh button handy when you are doing template changes.

We have had requests by some customers to add MX record look up validation. This would actually check to see if the email address is a real, actual email address and not just one that ‘looks real.’ Add a comment or send us an email if this sounds like something you would use.

Next target for revision is reporting (followed by some interface changes, per your collective input). Expect to hear great news after the 4th of July Holiday!

Change Log:

• Installed eAccelerator
• Added Survey Preview toolbar allowing navigation between preview pages
• Changed our survey-network protocol to be faster and more efficent for large volumes
• Clicking ‘View All In Design’ and ‘View All Launched’ from the welcome screen now correctly go to thier respective lists.
• Added blog headlines (yep just like you are reading right here) to the SurveyBuilder home page for your viewing pleasure
• Survey setup expand/collapse advanced section now works properly
• Question editor Advanced Page Details expand/collapse now works properly. Hidden by default since most folks wont need these options
• Bug fixed where two tabs were highlighted after launching a survey
• Advanced option section of HTTP post cleaned up

UI Enhancements & Minor updates for 06/08/2006

We pushed a few changes last night, some in response to bugs and some in response to user feedback.

We are trying out a change to the Survey Editor so you can now see the Edit/Copy/Delete Question buttons without hovering. We have always felt this page is a place a lot of survey tools could use improvement. They tend to look way too cluttered so that’s why we went with a design where the buttons were available while you hovered on a question. But we have heard from users that they just didn’t “get it” at least not easily enough and we want an easy survey tool. So now the buttons are always visible, but they are more subdued in color until you rollover it. The Edit Button is now also the largest since it is the most used.

Another improvement to our UI involves out Advanced Editor Pallets in the Advanced Question Editor screen. These pallets have always been able to expand and collapse to get them out of the way, but now SurveyGizmo will remember whether you left them open or closed the next time you return!

We moved a few buttons around to make things a little clearer. The Add page button is now visually in between pages right where the new page would go.

That’s about it for now, please keep the feedback coming. You are welcome to send us an email or add comments to this post.

Bug Change log

• Fixed a bug where Checkbox dynamic controls where not show correctly
• Fixed an occasional bug when saving survey setups
• There is now a cheat sheet key to remind us that Green = Launched Survey, Blue = In Design, and Grey = Closed. Even we sometimes forgot!
• Trash can now used as the universal delete button throughout the survey application
• Reorder/Drag questions UI enhancements
• Clicking surveys with status “In Design” now jumps you straight into the editor, by passing the Overview page

David Chivers of Meredith Corp wins our iPod Giveaway

Congratulations to David Chivers for winning a shinny brand new new iPod Shuffle (believe us, it was hard not tear off the plastic wrap and take it for a spin). David is with Meredith Corporation which among other things publishes magazines like Fitness, Ladies Home Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, and what seems like a million others.

David attended MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit where we exhibited and then later responded to a post card we mailed out. We wanted folks to try out our applications free and possibly win an iPod Shuffle for their trouble. We used SurveyGizmo to generate a custom landing page that we drove traffic to. We had a great response and we’ll be putting out a case study on how to use direct mail and SurveyGizmo to run a campaign like this.

We hope David loves his iPod, as well as, our software. Thanks again to everyone who entered. David your iPod is in the mail, or it will be as soon as I can pull the box out of my co-developer’s vice-like grip.