For a long time, our survey charts have used an engine that delivers each graph or chart as an image. The reports have always looked great, but there was something missing. We wanted them to be a little more polished…and we wanted them to be interactive.

So this week, we announced the launch of our new survey charts. On the surface, you’ll notice that they look quite a bit slicker than the former version. They also bring an element of interactivity to them that our charts haven’t had before. When you hover over a column in a bar graph or a wedge in a pie chart, you’ll now see metrics from your survey results overlaid on top of the chart.

You can also interact with the new survey charts by clicking on a section of the chart, which will highlight it and offer more survey data. And in the Run Report screen, hovering over the data in the Response Breakdown table will highlight the relevant piece of the chart, giving readers a good visual indicator of how the survey data fits together.

And they print beautifully.

We’ve been testing this format of reports in a few different places for a little while, and we like it a lot – with this week’s roll-out, you should see their use more widespread across the entire site. Hope you enjoy them – let us know what you think!

The interested reader might want to refer to Edward R. Tufte’s 2001 book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information for a more detailed account on how to make sure your reports have “graphical integrity.” It is an excellent book.

Tips for Maintaining Graphical Integrity

1. Always include the number, N, of observations on your chart.

This simple addition to any chart (see example below*) is critical to understanding the data presented. Including the number of observations on your chart let’s the reader reconstruct your data from the percentages given. It also provides an indirect measure of the variability one might expect to see.

2. Use counts instead of percents when N is small, fewer than 10 to 15.

When you have a very small number of survey respondents it is better to plot counts than the percentage of counts (see following two charts). Even though it is possible for the reader to calculate the counts on his or her own, going to counts for small numbers helps the readability of a chart by eliminating the extra step. The human brain can read and interpret small numbers quickly and without ambiguity.

3. Don’t overload your chart or graph.

It is important that your reader be able to get information quickly and efficiently from your chart of graph. There is often a tendency to add too many items to your graph that do not add to the data’s message. Often “non-data” items (e.g. 3-D images) are included that can detract from or mask the true information. Even if you include only data on the chart, it is easy to overload it will information.

The following example shows a common mistake, which leads to a chart that is difficult interpret.

The most critical piece of the data from the chart above is the trend information. Therefore it is best to emphasize that element of the data. If, in addition, you combine the percentages for “Much better” and “Better” as well as for “Worse” and “Much worse,” the chart becomes much easier to read and interpret (see below).

4. Show all of your data.

The complete truth about a data set usually extends beyond what you can fit on a single chart or graph, but you need to strive to show all available data. For example, suppose a manufacturer comes out with a new product release and wants to see what effect the new release has had on service calls. The chart below shows the number of product service calls for the year before the release compared to the same number after the new release.

This seems like a reasonable approach but the two years of data do not begin to tell the whole story. Showing all of your available data better represents the true situation (see chart below). The two charts give substantially different pictures.

As I’ve talked about many times, graphical displays of data can be powerful communication tools. If you follow these few tips it should help you provide clear and concise information and avoid charts that are confusing or misleading to your readers. In my next article I’m going to return to the topic of writing surveys, by going over the top ten most common mistakes made when writing surveys.

*NOTE: The charts and graphs in this blog post were generated by exporting a CSV of SurveyGizmo survey data into Excel.

This week and next week we’ll be spotlighting a few of the projects our developers are working on. Today, let’s talk about Geolocation.

What Is Geolocation, Anyway?

Geolocation is the process of identifying the physical location of an object. It’s a pretty broad subject overall – in this case, though, we’re talking specifically about mapping, both in your survey questions and reporting. Want the ability to add maps to your surveys and reporting? It’s on its way.

Who’s Building It?

Matt Null, one of our senior developers (that’s him on the right), saw an opportunity to make our current geotagging survey options even more robust. It’s one of a couple of add-on projects he’s digging into during Developer’s Lab.

How Does It Work?

Matt is using the Google Maps API to build the new geolocation survey tools – it’s super-extensible, offers the ability to expand offerings do a wide variety of data mapping tasks, and users will be familiar with the interface from moment one.

Great, So What Could I Do With Geolocation in My Surveys?

We’ve already thought up a ton of ideas for how to use this technology in surveys. Here’s a few favorites:

• Drop a Pin. Respondents can drop pins to show you various locations on a map. From a reporting standpoint, you can view a map of all the pins dropped, and even use the location data plotted to calculate various info (distance between two points, location-based demographic data, and more).
• Select from Several Points of Interest. Thanks to an integration with the Google Places API, you can select from millions of local businesses across the world and use them in your maps. For instance, say that a national restaurant chain wants users to select which local restaurants they visit the most. Using the tool, the coffee shop would be able to take the respondent’s address and plot all nearby locations on the map. Respondents could then select the one they visit the most.
• Directions & Incentives. At the end of a survey, you can offer survey takers a coupon and directions to a nearby retail location based on where they live.

As you can see, there are a ton of possibilities for integrating location data into a survey. And from a reporting standpoint, there’s potential to do all sorts of things with the data – from data mapping to pinpoint targeting on a regional and local basis.

Don’t you already have Geotargeting Tools?

Yep, we do! Our Pro, Enterprise and Dedicated customers can already use our current Geotargeting functionality to filter results, set quotas, and serve up different survey content based on respondents’ location.

Matt’s new add-ons, however, focus more on interactive maps and ways to integrate them with your surveys and reporting. We think they’ll be a great complement to enhance our current Geotargeting features.

When Are You Releasing It?

While we don’t have a firm release date down for these geolocation tools yet, we expect that a lot of progress will be made over the next week of Developer’s Lab. We can’t wait to see what else Matt and the rest of the dev team come up with.

**If you’re interested in using geographic data with your surveys, check out our current SurveyGizmo Geotargeting features now!

This week we’ve added a brand-new reporting feature that I’m sure any small business will undoubtedly find extremely helpful — the TURF Report.

What is a TURF report, you say?

Well, TURF stands for Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency. What does that really mean?

Let me give you an example!

Let’s say you own an ice cream shop and are trying to decide on which 3 new flavors to add to your menu. You want to know which flavors will make the most customers happy which will in turn result in higher profits.

You send out a survey and tell your customers to pick from a list of 20 new flavors their top 3.

You get the results back and according to your summary report people voted like the following:

Chocolate Chocolate Chip – 20 votes
Strawberry Short Cake – 12 votes
Vanilla Milkshake – 11 votes
Rocky Road – 9 votes
Purple Paradise – 8 votes
Wisconsin Cheese – 6 votes
Caramel Surprise – 5 votes

From the list above you would assume that the 3 flavors you should pick in order to make the most people happy would be Chocolate Chocolate Chip, Strawberry Short Cake, and Vanilla Milkshake — they got the most votes after all.

This is where the TURF report comes into play. It measures not only how many times people voted but which combination of results will give you the furthest reach (make the most people happy).

Back to our little example, it turns out that the combination of:
Chocolate Chocolate Chip
Vanilla Milkshake
Rocky Road

will make the most people happy. Why is that?

Because the people who voted for Chocolate Chocolate Chip also voted for Strawberry Short Cake. But the people who voted for Rocky Road didn’t vote for Chocolate Chocolate Chip or Vanilla Milkshake. By adding Rocky Road to your menu, you’re making new people happy, while still making the Chocolate Chocolate Chip/Strawberry Short Cake lovers happy too.

That was just a quick example of what a TURF report can do for you. To check out a real-life example of how SurveyGizmo used the TURF as well as step-by-step instructions, you’ll want to head over to the new TURF Report Tutorial.

As always, if you have any questions or want to let us know how you use the TURF, leave some comment love!

Please indicate your level of satisfaction with each of the following aspects of our service.

This type of question is popular for surveys because it is easy to design and easy for the respondent to complete, both good reasons to use it. In this article, I look at the best way to report the data obtained from this question type.

Alternatives
1. Table with Counts and Percentages (plus)

SurveyGizmo adds “Average %” at the bottom of the table.

2. Individual Bar Charts

This requires five charts, one for each attribute. I have shown an example of what one would look like above.

3. Stacked Bar Charts

This option essentially puts all five bar charts on the same chart. This chart was created in Microsoft Excel using the percentages SurveyGizmo gives in the original table. It is one of the chart type options Microsoft products offer and is undoubtedly a part of other charting software as well.

4. Average* Attribute Ratings Bar Chart

This chart was created by first assigning numbers to the Likert scale levels; 5=Very satisfied, 4=Satisfied, 3=Neutral, 2=Dissatisfied, 1=Very unsatisfied and then averaging all the ratings for each attribute. The five averages are then plotted using a horizontal bar chart not unlike the vertical bar chart in alternative 2.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Alternatives 1, 2 and 3 all have a key advantage over alternative 4. From the averages in number 4, one can’t recreate the raw data as you can with the other three alternatives. In addition, averages can be difficult to interpret. The percentages in the first three alternatives have very specific meanings.

If we look at just alternatives 1, 2 and 3, alternative 3, the stacked bar charts, has some distinct advantages. It is less cumbersome than the five charts required for alternative 2 and it is easier to read than the 61 numbers in the alternative 1 table.

With alternative 3 one can make quick comparisons between the different attributes. One measure I like to use when comparing attributes is the percentage of respondents that were either “Very satisfied” or “Satisfied” (the first two sections in the stacked bar chart).

So reporting matrix data can be pretty straight forward, but the problem gets more complicated when you want to look at the same data over time. This leads to the goal of “one number reporting”. By “one number reporting” I mean developing a single number that best depicts, for example, your client satisfaction. One number reporting is always desirable (for simplicity and tracking purposes) and always challenging with the tradeoffs that are required. I’ll leave that discussion for my next blog entry.

Well, we have a fantastic answer for you! If you have an Enterprise or above level account, you now have the ability to run a Page Fall Off Report. This report (shown below) can show you on what page people stop taking your survey in a visual manner.

We hope that by providing this report, it will help you with your survey design as well as increase your completion rates. After all, the most important part about creating a survey is to be able to analyze the completed data one you’re done.

Happy Surveying!

I’m happy to say that the migration is now complete. Thanks to everyone who pointed out migration issues over the last few days. We have a few minor changes that we will make over this weekend to ensure stability and make good use of the power of these new machines.

Here are the benefits of the new servers. I’m sure you will agree that it was worth it!

Improved Speed & Security

Your survey data is now safer than it has ever been before! Our special server setup now keeps your data safe behind a firewall, stored on its own set of databases and encrypted storage. This means there is no direct access to your data from the internet, and the format of the data is not easy to reconstruct even in a worst case scenario. Our application servers and API connect to these servers over a very fast private connection. This, combined with a generous amount of memory and more processors, allows us to make SurveyGizmo really fly! (Some speed improvements will require a few changes to the application after the migration.)

Thanks again to everyone who helped iron out small bugs and glitches during this migration period. We will work through the weekend looking for any remaining issues. If you find any, as always let us know and we will jump on them!

We’ve added a couple new tutorials this week: The “Sweet Sixteen” Tips For Building Online Surveys and Creating a Report: The Filtering Tool. We invite you to check them out for answers to the above questions — and plenty of additional tips and tactics for creating effective online surveys.

Think we’re kidding about the eye-catching charts? Check this out:

If you have any questions about how the reporting tools work, please take a look at our new tutorials on:

• Creating a basic report
• Exporting data
• Clearing responses

Stay tuned: Next week we plan to launch expanded filtering and graphic configuration reporting tools. The new platform gives us the ability to more easily roll new features into reporting, and you’ll be seeing these features over the next few months. Do you have a particular type of report you’d like to see? Please add a comment to this blog post or email us at support@sgizmo.com.