Giving Thanks / Writing questions that invite people in

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest Thanksgiving fan. So much of the history and context of the holiday gets forgotten or pushed aside (speaking of, for those interested, I love this resource from the National Museum of the American Indian). That being said, I am a fan of gratitude and letting people know that they matter.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with survey design, I’ll tell you: when you craft a question that doesn’t include all possible responses, you—on some level—send a message that certain responses, certain people, don’t matter. You are actively excluding people and their thoughts or experiences. If I can’t fit my honest response in your question, does that mean you don’t care about how I feel? It sounds dramatic. But is it?

One of the reasons I love surveys so much is that they are an incredibly powerful tool for allowing many people to speak up and out. They give people a voice in decisions, in telling stories. But you limit that voice when you aren’t thoughtful in your design.

Let’s consider this question an anonymous colleague posed on LinkedIn:

How many years of work experience do you have?

• 1–5

• 5–10

• 10–30

This question excludes people with less than a year of work experience and those with more than 30 years of experience. Do they not want to hear from them? Do their experiences not matter? (Yes, there needs to be a better definition of "work experience." Yes, there are overlapping answer categories. Like I say in my book, questions rarely have just one problem).

Good survey questions invite people in; they make everyone feel included.

Being inclusive when crafting your answer choices is not only important for getting more accurate data—it also matters because of how your question might make the person taking the survey feel.