A couple of people have asked why we didn’t require an e-mail address in order to take the survey. The answer is this: I did not want to require people to supply information that could be used to tie survey questions like “annual income” and “net worth” back to them. While a number of people use bogus e-mail addresses at gmail, hotmail or yahoo, many do not.
Here are the things I know need to be improved:
1. Better instructions, including publication of the cutoff for collecting the prize
2. Make sure the participant knows to write down or print the survey number and survey owner identifier.
3. Fewer questions would be nice (may not be possible)
4. Shorter period for closing off the survey (everyone wants to see who won sooner than later).
Here’s how I think we’re going to fix them
1. I am probably going to require that people taking the survey next year check off that they have read the instructions before they can take the survey. At the conclusion of the survey, a page will appear asking them to print the a page with their their survey number and survey owner ID. They will also be asked to check a box confirming that they recorded this info.
2. I will allow people to enter their e-mail address if they want (will not be mandatory)
3. Zip code (or country if no zip code) will be required. The most people we got from a single zip code was 4, if you can believe that.
4. I’ll go over this year’s questions, determine what sections we might cut out next year.
5. I’ll shorten the survey period to 3 weeks.
Comments? Other suggestions?
