A List Apart Publishes Web Survey Findings

A List Apart has published findings from their April 2007 Web design survey. It’s a rather comprehensive study (over 30,000 respondents–I was one of them) and the first of its kind. One of the things that impresses me most, however, isn’t that it’s so comprehensive, but that the folks at A List Apart were honest enough to admit that in hindsight some of the questions were a bit ambiguous and left holes in the data. So often, this is only something you’ll find after the analysis has been done. It’s great to see researchers being honest.

One of my biggest complaints with surveys in the past is that they are designed poorly. Poorly designed surveys lead to misleading data–bad data in, bad data out. In the report, the researchers actually highlight questions that left holes in the data or the felt left some of the findings a bit ambiguous, or possibly questionable. As a researcher, this increased my confidence in the data.

Congrats to the folks over at A List Apart for running the survey and being honest and ethical enough to show where the data had holes and how they can improve it in the future. I’ll definitely participate in their next study, which they promise will be refined based on their findings this time around.

Read the article, or just grab the survey results. It’s a good read and packed with plenty of good information. Thanks again for pulling this together.

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Published:
10.18.07 / 7am
Category:
Research