Easy online surveys

Sometimes you need to know what other people think. Whether you're doing some research for your studies, need feedback on your website or simply want to poll your colleagues for their thoughts on an office move - online surveys make it easy.

You do not need to be a technical whiz to set them up and there is little cost involved.

Check out the long established surveymonkey.com, which offers a great free service for those needing to run one-off or occasional surveys.

Once you've logged in to your account, you'll see four options across the top right of the screen. Click on Create Survey and you are guided through the process.

First, give your survey a title and choose a colour scheme from the available options. Then click on Add Question and choose a question type from the drop-down menu.

If you've never created a survey before then the choice of question types can be a little bewildering. Click on Need help? at the top right of the page and this will take you to one of the most comprehensive help centres I have ever seen for an online tool.

Once your questions are complete take a quick look under Survey Settings. Here you can change things like the text on the navigation buttons, or opt to have a progress bar show in your survey so people know when they've nearly finished.

Finally, check through your survey in Preview mode so you can see what your respondents will see.

When it comes to collecting actual responses you can either opt to send out emails with a pre-generated link to the survey or upload email addresses and send out an invitation via Survey Monkey.

With the latter, the system will allow you to see who has and hasn't responded and send reminders out where required. Either way all responses are collated within your account and presented in an easy to view format.

Survey Monkey's free account limits you to 10 questions a survey and a maximum of 100 responses. You can upgrade to a Pro account for about $25 a month.

This gives you access to premium features such as logo upload, bespoke colour schemes and the option of running surveys in other languages.

Another provider worth considering is surveygizmo.com. It also offers a free account and the interface is clean and in some ways simpler than Survey Monkey. There's a nice feature which automatically shows you examples of the question types while creating your survey.

It can be difficult to envisage what a "matrix question with radio buttons" might look like, but hover your mouse over the option and it all becomes clear.

With these tools, creating smart looking online surveys is a breeze.

However, there's an art to writing good questions and keeping respondents interested enough to complete your survey. So make sure you spend time on the content, not just the colour of the navigation buttons.

- © Fairfax NZ News