We often get asked ‘why do people in the UK love surveys so much?’ and on face value it’s a valid question. Especially as there are so many more interactive methods on offer these days. Truth is, a large proportion of our wok involves the humble questionnaire – and that hasn’t changed much over the years’. But when we are challenged we always leap to its defence – it’s not a bad thing – #notanothersurvey might imply that the method is so old and boring that it’s actually impairing consultations in some way.
- They are repeatable, comparable like for like (e.g. last year versus this year). Statistically sound, measurable, consistent;
- People know how to fill them in, they’re used to them;
- Councils know how to make them = low effort;
- They are easy to replicate on other channels (mainly print) or for people with disabilities to respond (e.g. ‘Easy Read’);
- Because they can be templated for consistency to avoid legal challenges. For example, repeatable elements around capturing demographics to satisfy the public sector equalities duty;
- Because the answers are structured, resulting data can be easily weighted etc (more a historical sense-making issue);
- The narrative can be interwoven with the questions – using page content;
- The participant can come back to their submission at a later date and is able to take the list of questions to consult/distribute to other before making a submission on behalf of them (representative submission – think statutory stakeholders);
- They fit the reporting behaviours inside government (e.g in love with spreadsheets and statistics);
- Sometimes the statue dictates a survey is the method to be used (think tenant engagement questionnaires);
- The survey method preserves the identity and response of the participant – especially true of sensitive surveys such as IVF cycles etc. It can also feathre safeguards – e.g. you can only respond once in the digital domain;
- Skip logic (online) can create efficiencies for the participant;
- Change consultations must contain a key question. For example, ‘Do. you agree or disagree with our proposals’. You could do that with a poll but there might be other concerns such as if the responder should be aware or is influenced by the current consensus.
So what about ‘other’, more dialogic methods? The use case of ‘other’ methods tends to be more about engagement. For example, pre or post consultation OR for continual engagement projects. Very few consultation and engagement professionals have the luxury of pre or post engagement phases because they are always behind the clock. Specifically, here’s a few reasons why these efforts can be a bad fit:-
- There is more to ‘manage’ during the dialogue phase = high effort (and more to analyse afterwards!);
- More dialogic methods come with risks around what people might say or do, say cause embarrassment or contravene the online Safety Act. There may not even be a policy on it (simple things like a good moderation policy are needed);
- An ideation project is harder to set-up and they shy away from the possibility of making configuration mistakes;
- The best forms of consultation are often what I would describe as an ‘options’ type. Choose A,B or C. That’s hard to convey in methods other than a survey unless you use voting or thumbs up/down. The ‘why’ A,B or C was chosen is also important – yet it’s harder to restrict/limit an open dialogue like you might get with ideation. In other words, new ideas during an options based consultation are invited so that the consultee has an ‘open mind’ but hard to deal with when options are already formed. Asking what might be done differently spells trouble for policymakers at an advanced stage of option formation.
In other words, don’t be so hasty to junk your humble questionnaire. It is the workhorse of many important consultations and is likely to stay this way until telephathy is mainstream.