[Sigia-l] user survey questionnaire

[Patrick Grizzard]

Hi all,

I am redesigning an intranet for a client with offices in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, etc. We have scheduled time to conduct interviews with users in their NJ office, but in order to get a more representative sampling, we created a questionnaire to post on the current intranet. The response of some of the stakeholders is that they feel it will be too time consuming, and therefore senior-level employees and managers will not respond. Their suggestion was to make the survey responses multiple choice. I explained that in order for the responses to be useful, we need open-ended responses that do not foreclose any possibilities or lead the user in a particular direction. I know that this is a pretty standard assumption for us, but I am wondering if anyone could point me to specific research/papers that I can use to make my case. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks,

:Patrick Grizzard
Information Architect
Ruder Finn Interactive