Thing #37 Part 2

Since the end of the month is here I thought I better take a few minutes and finish Thing #37. This month I used the free version of Polldaddy to create a simple 7 question branching survey about audio books. It’s been up for a week but only 2 people have taken the survey.

It was really easy to set up the survey but it did take a bit of thought to get the branching to work correctly. I probably should have read help but I just jumped right in and started setting up a branching survey. If you plan to create a branching survey with more than a few questions I’d strongly suggest writing/typing them out before you start. If I would have done that to start with I think the backend of my survey would have been a bit cleaner.

Here’s a brief example of my survey worked. I feel like I should have created a flowchart!

• My first question was Do you regularly listen to audio books? If the person answered yes they were jumped to page 2. If they said no they jumped to page 3. On both pages 2 and 3 I had additional questions.
• Depending on how the person answered question 2 they were either jumped to either page 6 or 7 depending on your answer.
• If the person answered question 3 as yes then they jumped to page 4. If they said no then they jumped to page 5.
• If question 4 was answered then they jumped to page 7.
• If question 5 was answered then they jumped to page 7.
• If you made it to page 6 then you got to answer the questions and automatically move on to page 7.
• Page 7 simply said thanks

As you can see it wasn’t extremely complex but it did take a bit of thought.

I think surveys would be a great took for libraries to use. It would be a simple way to gather a lot of information quickly. I think the hardest part may be getting people to complete the surveys however. It would also be important to limit the number of questions so the survey is not too long. Doing some quick brainstorming here are some examples of surveys I think a library could ask.

• Selecting the next book for a book group.
• Types of books the library is buying. Do patrons what more westerns or fewer westerns?
• What hours each day do they use the library? What days/times would they like the library open?
• Trivia questions about a popular book.
• Should your library buy Overdrive? Do your patrons own MP3 players or ereaders that would work with Overdrive?

If you haven’t experimented with any of the online survey tools you really should spend a few minutes with them. Who knows what kind of great data you may be able to collect. One last survey before you go.