Primary online research tools?

September 14, 2009 10:07 AM

On line survey tools?

I'm conducting primary research and need to create an online survey. Key requirements are hosting the survey, canned / numeric / free form answer types, coding of responses, conditional logic, conditional response validation, export capability and, as this survey will be distributed internationally, unicode support allowing native language translation.

We're expecting roughly 1,000 responses and would rather avoid services that appear cheaper in terms of upfront costs, only to whack you on the back end with fees per survey completed.

We've seen this earlier AskMeFi, have looked at a few sites ourselves and are considering SurveyMonkey , but wanted to see what other researchers could recommend.

Not critical at this time, but bonus points if the solution offered can scale from roughly 1K to over 100K responses with no additional work from ourselves.

posted by Mutant to Education (9 answers total)

Best answer: I've used Survey Monkey for some pretty complex projects, and it works well.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:20 AM on September 14, 2009

Best answer: We've used SurveyMonkey for user research with excellent results. (As far as the technology. The surveys themselves, maybe not so much.)
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:22 AM on September 14, 2009

Best answer: I am surprised no one mentioned formsite.com in the previous thread. I believe they have all the features as well as the scalability you mentioned.
posted by worpet at 10:24 AM on September 14, 2009

Best answer: I worked a consulting engagement recently where we were looking at ~13,000 responses, and worried that Survey Monkey wouldn't cut it. We ended up looking at KeySurvey, and it seems fantastic. Haven't yet executed, but it's what we'll use when we do.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 10:25 AM on September 14, 2009

Best answer: Another recommendation for Survey Monkey. It's easy to create their surveys and the data collected is well organized.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 11:13 AM on September 14, 2009

Best answer: I have used HostedSurvey twice now, and been very happy with them. Their fee structure is strictly per response, and they give very generous academic discounts. I've never had to worry about Unicode support, so I can't speak to that, but I believe they meet all your other criteria.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 12:05 PM on September 14, 2009

Best answer: I used to be in marketing research and used Zoomerang extensively for online surveys. It can certainly handle ~1000+ responses. There is a basic version that is free and an enhanced version (with additional skip patterns, question types, rankings) that can be used for a fee. Responses can be exported to Excel and SPSS. Additionally, Zoomerang is owned by MarketTools, so they can assist you with recruiting respondents (for a fee) if needed.
posted by Andy's Gross Wart at 3:29 PM on September 14, 2009

Best answer: The company where I work uses Survey Monkey for some sizable projects on occasion. They are happy with it.
posted by sien at 4:46 PM on September 14, 2009

Best answer: If you use Survey Monkey, look at its capabilities before you design your survey. It has some inherent limitations (e.g. very limited skip patterns) and its ubiquity might make you seem less professional to certain audiences. I like Zoomerang too... I used to use Survey Z which had a different fee structure and is also worth checking out.
posted by carmicha at 4:59 PM on September 14, 2009