FREE! is the headline, but there are two other claims shared by every one of the dozens of Free DIY Online Survey companies. Read this and see how you feel about their claims.
Our product is easy to use!
Most say their tools require absolutely no previous experience or knowledge. Some say theirs is so easy that it turns work into personal amusement. These products are so much fun and so easy to use, they make survey research a breeze.
The claim that we need no experience or training to create surveys is true at amusement-only levels, along the lines of the ones Family Feud uses when they tell us they surveyed 100 members of their studio audience. Don’t bet your company’s future on cheap.
Dig a little deeper on Free DIY Survey sites and you can sometimes find a section where they caution us about bias, phrasing, precision, and validity
This advice is helpful, but one can’t help but notice that they are telling us what to do without telling us how to do it, or why it’s important. Noticeable by their omission are such basic things as sequencing, flow, context, response categories, sampling, analytical plans, and the like. There are scores of things survey experts know to be crucial to good design, and amateurs know nothing about them. Wikipedia lists more than one hundred types of bias. How many of them do you know?
Our product is fast!
A typical claim is the ability to create and publish surveys quickly. So quickly that most of them say it will only take a few minutes. Our favorite is the promise that we no longer have to spend hours scratching our heads. I’d say if you’re spending hours scratching your head, you should see a dermatologist.
We believe this claim to create surveys in minutes is true at very simple levels
An excellent example is the one Amazon sends us after dropping off a package. Calculating and reporting Great and Not so great responses can be done by a middle schooler.
We certainly will never believe the claim that we can create a masterpiece in minutes.
We are steadfastly unwilling to assume outstanding workmanship is paint-by-the-numbers. Free DIY Survey companies deliver on their fast and easy-to-use promises through the heavy use of standardized formats and boilerplate questions. The one-size-fits-all approach fits only situations where the information goals are simple and there is little risk.
Want to look at old things in new ways, see the commonplace in greater detail, and hear complex subject matter explained in simple, conversational language?
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Bonus
Remember the words of Warren Buffet, who said “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
As card player and folk philosopher Amarillo Slim said, If you don’t know who the fool at the table is, it’s you.”
