A way to obtain data from your audience in the form of an online questionnaire. Using a series of questions that are well structured and easy to answer, maximizes the response rate.

Used primarily at the start of a design process, surveys should be used to gauge opinion, user’s core needs and the relevance of content. They should skip areas that are likely to have a more complex answer. They are not suitable for uncovering usability issues.

There should be a focused reason for a survey that will make the questions easier to structure. Online Surveys are cheap to run and relatively easy to manage. Be aware that they tend to provide a snapshot of the user base because they will not engage all types of users.