By Clinton B. Harman

I was recently asked to incorporate a survey into an industry blog that I had proposed. I’ve been asked to include a survey on many projects and I’ve never really taken into consideration the effectiveness of a survey. I’m a User Experience Strategy guy and from a strategy standpoint, surveys are still considered a great method for user engagement. Surveys allow the user to interact with the site and in turn create an opportunity for instantaneous fulfillment of the user needs through the expectation of results.

Right about now would normally be the end of the article. However during the review process I was asked to move the survey to a higher priority and instantly felt a cringe. This cringe hit me right in the spine as I thought about the idea of subjecting users to a survey before they were even convinced the site was in fact an expert resource for industry knowledge. As I began to form my response to this proposed change, I started to evaluate the relationship between our business objectives and users.

A website can be considered a social contract between the users and the business. The users have what the business needs and vice versa, but neither is necessarily willing to give the other what they want without an agreement. You may be thinking to yourself that this is not always true, but I assure you it is. Your first instinct may be to point out the thousands of sites that give away articles and information every day. But is it really free?

On these sites there is an exchange of clicks for entertainment, whether that be in the form of news, gossip or kitten pictures. Those clicks are then exchanged for ad revenue, which is then reinvested into providing more content which is then returned to the users, and on and on it goes. The contract is complete and as long as the site continues to provide the value of entertainment the users will return.

Now let’s re-visit the idea of our industry specific site. Our audience is greatly reduced. Our chances for user engagement are also reduced. Our entertainment value is virtually nil, although I’d be curious to see the results from a daily kitten pic on our site. The nature of this site is down to brass tacks and high quality content. This site has that and some to spare, so why was I feeling this cringe?

In this scenario we have only two parties. The user who is seeking industry specific information and the business who is providing the information. The contract here requires only that the business provides the information and the user will read it. Now the site is asking the user for something in addition to reading the material, the site is asking the user to participate in the form of a survey. The survey requires the user to re-evaluate the relationship they have with the site.

The industry expert business has made two assumptions. Since the business has given away the information and the user has been reading it, the business assumes a form of return value is long overdue. However the business has overlooked what their user has already given them, in the form of engagement, analytics and search engine weight. They also assume compliance from the user to complete the survey, since surveys are a great form of user engagement.

Now I’ve begun to identify where the cringe comes from. We’ve jumped the gun. We’ve asked the user to volunteer information for a survey without getting their consent first. It may seem strange, but equal exchange is a principal that exists within the business community, especially with information.

Early in my career, I had the privilege of sitting in on a meet and greet with two VPs from separate companies considering a partnership. It started out with each VP only saying a sentence, maybe two and patiently waiting for the other to respond. At the time, the pauses were excruciating to me, I didn’t understand why they weren’t talking more, why there wasn’t a more open exchange of ideas since they shared a common goal.

It wasn’t until later in my career that I realized I had watched the equivalent a boxing match between two heavyweights. The early rounds were just the occasional jabs to feel each other out. Neither one willing to exchange more information than necessary. However since neither was willing to commit for fear of leaving himself exposed, the match ended in a draw.

This boxing match brings me back to thoughts on our survey. If neither of these two VPs were willing to give away information to work towards a common goal, how could we ever convince either of them to take a survey? The answer is simple, we have to give them something in exchange. They won’t take the survey in exchange for information the business has already given them for free. They may do it out of the kindness of their hearts, but it’s doubtful. That isn’t to say they don’t have hearts, it’s to say they have been trained to never give away information.

Now that we have thought through our scenario it’s time to make an addendum to our contract. We have to figure out how much the information is worth. Is this information from a survey critical to our success? If so, we’ll need to return value. So for this scenario, let’s say the data from this survey is going to determine how we target our marketing efforts. Most would agree this is valuable information. In exchange we should give something of like value.

A gift card comes to mind or better yet, a raffle. 1 in 1000 wins a $10 gift card for a particular coffee empire. If you argue that is not enough incentive, then you’ll have to up the ante. How about 1 in 100 win a gift card? If you were against the odds of 1 in 1000 you’re already starting to see the value of this debate. Randomly asking people to take a survey is usually met with indifference, however asking them to take a survey in exchange for $10 is more likely scenario.

This is only one example of the social contracts we bring when we request information on the internet. This same debate can be in regards to forms, newsletter sign-up, or like us Facebook. You should always ask yourself first, “well, what would I expect in exchange if asked to take a survey?”