[Theforum] Demographics

[Luther, Ron]

Hi Dean,


+1!  Yeah, that was my first thought too.

It's one of those 'artsy-craftsy' areas in survey design ... The
checkboxes don't provide as much 'in-depth' information - but they are a
good bit easier to work with on the analysis end, and they require less
thinking and effort on the respondent end.

Maybe the best balance would be to throw a catch-all text area on the
end ... "Tell us anything you wanted to tell us that we were too dumb to
leave you a spot for to tell us with ... right heah!"


As a first effort, though .. I don't think an "OMNIBUS" design is a bad
way to go!  [Omnibus is a survey design where a large number of folks
with slightly different interests each get to ask just enough survey
questions to almost give them what they need to work with.  It's like
trying to have one survey that makes Advertising, Public Relations, and
Marketing *all* happy at the same time ... while simultaneously keeping
the survey short enough to keep the respondent from hanging up the phone
... but long enough to make sure their dinner gets cold!  When balanced
*just so* --- It's quite an art form!]

;-)


RonL.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dean Mah [mailto:dmah at shaw.ca]

What you have works for me.  Alternatively, you could just add an
open-ended question to the end of each of the specific sections (weo
and leo) asking what topics they would be intereseted in.