What is Survey research?
Survey research is a quantitative method that collects self-reported data from a sample of users through structured questionnaires, measuring attitudes, preferences, behaviors, and satisfaction at scale.
How it works
Effective survey design requires clear, unbiased questions, appropriate response scales, logical flow, and adequate sample size. Common survey types include satisfaction surveys (CSAT), task-specific surveys (post-interaction), and segmentation surveys (understanding user groups). Key pitfalls include leading questions (‘How much do you love our product?’), double-barreled questions (‘How satisfied are you with speed and reliability?’), acquiescence bias (tendency to agree), and nonresponse bias (respondents differ from non-respondents). Surveys are best at measuring breadth across a large population but weak at understanding depth, which requires qualitative methods.
Applied example
A product team surveys 2,000 users about feature priorities. The survey reveals that 70% rank ‘faster performance’ as their top need, but follow-up interviews with 15 users reveal that ‘faster performance’ means completely different things to different user segments: page load time for some, search result speed for others, and report generation time for a third group.
Why it matters
Survey research provides the scale needed to quantify user needs and attitudes across a population, but its value depends entirely on question quality and interpretation discipline.
