Survey Guide

This guide should be used with the methods outlined in the Surveys section of Chapter 4 Explore the Community.

Surveys are not just questionnaires — they are structured experiments in convergence.
They work best after you’ve uncovered pains through conversations and observation, helping you measure how widespread frustrations are and which matter most.

When to Use

To validate and rank insights from conversations or observations.
To measure prevalence of pains across a population.
To reach groups you cannot easily interview or observe.

Design Principles

Keep it short — 5–10 focused questions.
Ask about past and present, not hypotheticals or future desires.
Use ranking or rating scales (e.g., “Which was hardest?” or “Rate the difficulty from 1–5”).
Add one or two open-ended prompts (e.g., “What’s the hardest part of X?”).
Pilot test on a few respondents to catch bias or confusion.

Common Mistakes

Too long (fatigue → bad data).
Product-centric (“Would you buy this?”).
Future-focused (“Would you want a tool that…”).
Leading or loaded questions.

Success Signal

Your survey has done its job when it:

Clarifies which pains matter most.
Reveals how widespread they are.
Helps you prioritize which hypotheses to test next.