IN THIS ISSUE:

StreamingSurvey Success Story
A SurveyWriter client recently completed a major study for a leading manufacturer of pain relief medicine using StreamingSurvey, our tool for incorporating streaming video into surveys using Flash Technology. more

Determining "Most Used" When Sort Question Results in a Tie 
Often in your surveys, you will use a combination of a rating question and a sort question to capture the "most often used" or "top pick" and display it in a follow question. However, if respondents rate two top choices with the same code, the Sort question will randomly pick one of those two top choices as its result. more

SurveyWriterTeams Up with Survey Sampling International to Offer Sample
Many of you are already taking advantage of our new service, which allows our clients to order sample from SurveyWriter through a partner agreement with Survey Sampling International.  more

Support Shorts
Multiple Looping Validations
Download Question Text
Count Selected Answers more

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StreamingSurvey Success Story

A SurveyWriter client recently completed a major study for a leading manufacturer of pain relief medicine using StreamingSurvey, our tool for incorporating streaming video into surveys using Flash Technology. StreamingSurvey takes advantage of the latest Flash-based  solutions for embedding video and audio into your surveys to ensure that almost every respondent will be able to hear and see the media.

The client tested seven different 30-second television commercials within the same survey and collected over 900 interviews from both broadband and dial-up respondents. The respondents were shown one of the seven commercials randomly and asked to judge it on a number of different attributes.

StreamingSurvey was pivotal to the success of the project because the streaming technology eliminated all respondent firewall and proxie issues. It also detected the respondents' connection speed and presented the videos to each viewer almost instantaneously, regardless of whether the respondent was on a broadband or dialup connection. The presentation speed eliminated the dropouts that typically result when the respondent is made to wait while a video is loading.

Finally, StreamingSurvey made preloading all seven videos unnecessary. Preloading is a method in which respondents are asked preliminary questions in the survey while the application loads the video into their computer's memory behind-the-scenes. Each of the seven commercials was originally over four Megabytes before being converted for use in StreamingSurvey. Because of the number of videos and original size of the files, preloading 28 Megabytes of video files would have been impractical for respondents on even the most robust of connections. This was especially critical for this project because the videos were randomized so preloading one video at a time was not an option. All videos had to be available simultaneously.

If you have not seen StreamingSurvey in action, please give Joe Williams a call at 773-281-8490 or check out this product on the Internet at www.streamingsurvey.com.

Determining "Most Used" When Sort Question Results in a Tie 

Often in your surveys, you will use a combination of a rating question and a sort question to capture the "most often used" or "top pick" and display it in a follow question. However, if respondents rate two top choices with the same code, the Sort question will randomly pick one of those two top choices as its result.

In this example, we show you how to use an additional function question so that the respondent is forced to select one of the two answers selected by the Sort question as the "top" result.

1. Build the initial rating question, Q1, off of which all the other questions are based.

2. Build a standard sort question, FMostUsed, that pulls in the results from the previous rating question and displays the highest selected value based on the ratings in the parent question. If more than answer is tied for the "top" rank, SurveyWriter selects a random one answer from those available.

3. Build a second sort question, FSelectTie, that compares those answers that were selected as the "top picks" in FMostUsed with those that are selected in Q1. Note the way the nested question variable is used to pull in these values based on whether the answer qualified in FMostUsed. If the answer wasn't selected in FMostUsed, the filter will not evaluate to "True." This question now gives us all answers that were ranked the highest instead of just the one randomly chosen by FMostUsed.

{Q1-R|FMostUsed| = |Q1-R1|}

4. Build a follow up question that makes the respondent choose their top pick from those selected in FSelectTie. This question is not displayed if FMostUsed returns only one value as you can see by the highlighted prequestion filter.

This question also pipes in responses from FSelectTie.

SurveyWriter Teams Up with Survey Sampling International to Offer Sample

Many of you are already taking advantage of our new service, which allows our clients to order sample from SurveyWriter through a partner agreement with Survey Sampling International. Because of our initial success with our sample offering, we've been able to negotiate further discounts with studies involving medium to low incidence rates.  

According to Joel Friedman, CEO of SurveyWriter, "This partnership allows us to offer our clients sample at discounted rates. It also provides a convenience in their data collection process by giving them the ability to do one stop shopping from their SurveyWriter accounts. By collaborating with Survey Sampling International, we can deliver the highest quality consumer and B2B sample globally available and substantially expand the value we deliver to our clients.”

If you haven't tried out this new service, contact Joe Williams 772-281-8490 x3 at SurveyWriter for a quote on sample for your next survey project or email him at jgw@surveywriter.com. 

Support Shorts 

Multiple Looping Validations

If you need to repeat the same validation filter for a number of rows, you can now use SurveyWriter's Multiple Looping Validation feature to eliminate repetitive filters.

For example, you may have a question with 15 rows and have to repeat the same validation for each but only change the row number, you can use the following syntax:

Multiple Looping Validation Syntax

Multiple Looping Validation Filter (works on all 15 rows)

{q5-R* = 6}AND({q5-R* = 1}OR{q8-R* = 2}OR{q8-R* = 3}OR{q8-R* = 4}) [*=15]

Message

In row {*}, please do not select "Don't Know" and another option at the same time.

Standard Validation Filter (works on 1 row only)

{q5-R1 = 6}AND({q5-R1 = 1}OR{q8-R1 = 2}OR{q8-R1 = 3}OR{q8-R1 = 4})

Message

In row 1, please do not select "Don't Know" and another option at the same time.

Download Question Text

A new feature is available on the Download Data window that enables you to download the text of your questions along with your results.

Surveywriter uses the question ID and the question text as the header in your data file.

Count Select Answers

SurveyWriter now provides a new Function Question to streamline the process of counting answers in a previous question. The Count Select Answers function is more streamlined than the Point Value question and handles much the same function. It simply counts the number of answers selected in the designated question. We didn't remove the Point Value question from the menu, because you may still need the ability to build complex filters while assigning a value. 

To use the Count Select Answers function, select it from the Function Type menu. 

Click IQ to insert the question for which to count answers. 

To use this information later in the survey, you can enter it in a filter.

{F7_Count > 3}

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Thank you for your continued support of SurveyWriter. If you have any topics that you would like see addressed in future editions, please email me.

Sincerely,


Vice President, Business Development
773-281-8490 / prv@surveywriter.com