Online Survey Design and Development: A Janus Faced Approach

A Response to Lauer et al.'s "Online Survey Design and Development: A Janus Faced Approach"
This article by Claire Lauer, Michael McLeod and Stuart Blythe discusses the various considerations in designing and implementing surveys effectively. Here, Lauer et al. talks about the Janus approach - a process where researchers have to look at both the survey interface and database design - to ensure that they are able to "pursue the most dynamic and layered data collection possible while ensuring greater participation and completion rates from respondents" (Lauer et al., 2013, p. 331).
As more and more institutions realize the importance of gathering insights through online surveys, prepackaged platforms such as Survey Monkey and Zoomerang have become important resources. Unfortunately, these platforms have removed the need for programming skills and do not take into account theories for effective survey construction. This online software have made data collection easier, but the process has not become more effective. Often, online surveys have lengthy questions, and do not provide participants with an overview of the survey's overall aim or the effort it needs to be completed; hence, many respondents opt out in the middle of the process. Needless to say, without effective online survey theories and techniques, online surveys may lead to inaccurate and biased results.
This study is important because it provides a real example on how one can design and implement online surveys that meet the needs of both participants and researchers. It provides us an insight on how the authors developed questions, how they ensured that the survey interface was user friendly, as well as the tests they had to perform to ensure that data c...