Surveys and online experiments are some of the most powerful tools for collecting data, testing hypotheses, and gaining insights. But data is only as good as its quality. If your survey is filled with inattentive responses, bot submissions, or biased answers, you risk drawing misleading conclusions that could negatively impact your research.
Unfortunately, low-quality data can come from many sources: disengaged participants rushing through questions, survey design flaws that introduce bias, or even outright fraud from bots and spammers. The good news? You can fight back.
By following this checklist, you can help minimize these risks and help to ensure that your survey produces meaningful, reliable results. Whether you’re running academic research, user feedback surveys, or marketing studies, these 16 tips will help you get the high-quality data you need.
Survey Design & Content
A well-designed survey keeps participants engaged and helps to ensure their responses are meaningful.
🔲 Randomize question order to reduce order effects and bias
🔲 Randomize the order of answer options for categorical questions
🔲 Give participants one thing to focus on at a time
🔲 Use progress bars to show participants how far they’ve progressed
🔲 Make sure your survey looks good on all the devices (e.g., desktop, phone) you expect participants to use
🔲 Include free response and multiple choice questions to dig deeper into important topics
Data Quality & Fraud Prevention
Protect your survey from low-quality responses, bots, and inattentive participants.
🔲 Use bot-preventing platforms with quality filtering (like Positly) to block spamming
🔲 For information participants must understand, repeat it more than once
🔲 For information participants must understand, repeat it more than once
🔲 For information participants must understand, ask them a multiple choice question to make sure they read it (and make them read it again if they fail)
🔲 Add ‘attention check’ questions to make sure participants are taking in important information
For Surveys Taken by Unpaid Participants
Unpaid participants may have less motivation to provide quality responses, so extra steps are needed to keep them engaged.
🔲 Use interactive elements like quizzes, games, and polls
🔲 Add multimedia like videos, images, and audio
🔲 Put the most important questions at the beginning
🔲 Promise interesting feedback at the study end to incentivize participation
🔲 Use personalized messages or tailor the study to the participant’s interest
Final Thoughts: Good Data Starts With Good Design
Collecting high-quality data isn’t just about choosing the right participants—it’s about designing a survey that encourages thoughtful, accurate responses. Poorly designed surveys can frustrate participants, introduce bias, and invite careless responses, all of which lead to unreliable results.
By implementing these 16 strategies, you can create a survey experience that keeps participants engaged, filters out low-quality responses, and helps to ensure that your data is as accurate and insightful as possible.
If you want to take your data quality to the next level, consider using Positly—a platform built to help researchers find high-quality participants and reduce fraudulent responses.
Invest in good survey design today, and you’ll be rewarded with better insights tomorrow. 🚀
