From individual experience to community engagement: Best practices for survey design

The practices

In our latest webinar — “The Feedback Flow: From Well-Designed Surveys to Engaged Communities” — we reframe the conversation around surveys and consultation, exploring points of best practice with Jess Parry, digital engagement officer at Norwich City Council, and Sian Lomax, senior implementation consultant at Granicus. From survey design and language to feedback and follow up, this overview is intended to offer actionable insights for those seeking to engage with their communities during this most vital of steps in the consultation process.

Embracing empathy and emotion within the survey experience

Speaking in the opening minutes of the session, Jonathan Bradley, senior experience partner at Granicus, reflected upon the need to reframe the way those in government view the consultation process and — more specifically — of the need to reconsider the value and role of surveys within the wider consultation continuum.

“We need to start thinking about the survey as part of an overall experience,” he said, which should be seen from the perspective of the customer, citizen, or participant. Bradley added that,

From his perspective, this is something that should always be taken into account when creating surveys for public consultation.

While he acknowledged that most governmental organisations now excel at ensuring that the surveys they design adhere to certain legal frameworks — especially those set out by the Gunning Principles — Bradley highlighted the need to acknowledge the emotion that is an inherent part of the survey and consultation process. As he explained, emotion is “important in consultation like no other context.”

For Bradley, this flow of emotion not only creates an experience for those who participate in a survey, but also for those who are ultimately responsible for managing a consultation. While the Gunning Principles set a benchmark for the greater survey process, it’s paramount that surveys are designed with both fairness and intelligent consideration in mind. Here at Granicus, we view consultation as a service, with a well-designed survey offering benefits to both those who participate in and those who manage them.

Purpose, language, and structure: Points of best practice for survey design

On that point, Parry from Norwich City Council — an EngagementHQ customer — joined the webinar to discuss some best points of practice for creating a well-designed survey.

Surveys should be designed to capture new information on topics that are of high importance to your community. Keep the content tight and focused and avoid asking questions on topics where an outcome has already been decided or on those where there is very limited scope for change.

Parry also emphasised the importance of using clear, plain language throughout the design and content of a survey, avoiding jargon and acronyms to ensure clarity and accessibility for all participants. When it comes to survey structure, Parry suggests mixing both quantitative and qualitative questions, beginning with easier questions before moving on to more complex ones. In terms of a survey’s overall structure, it’s important to create clear sections and ensure a logical flow. If necessary, deploy routing questions to ensure that participants only need to answer the questions that are relevant to them.

Enhancing the survey experience

For those struggling with resources for data analysis within their surveys, Parry recommends having one open text question toward the end of the survey. Not only does this allow participants to offer up their direct thoughts, but it ensures that those managing the surveys can tap into a rich vein of feedback. Finally, once a survey has been designed, Parry stressed the importance of testing it to ensure a logical flow and natural use of language.

While language, content, and structure are vital in any well-designed survey, so too is its overall look and feel. Or, as Lomax from Granicus put it,

“Don’t disregard the importance of the visual appeal of a survey. If it’s just black and white text and it’s not as exciting, it’s not as interesting, and it can act as a turnoff.”

Feel free to embrace videos, graphics, and imagery to make surveys more engaging, but always ensure that they are accessible to all participants.

Challenges in community engagement

Even with the most thoughtfully designed survey, widespread participation — or rather, the participation of certain key stakeholders — is not always a given. As Parry explained during this webinar session, youth engagement has been a particular challenge for Norwich City Council. With this in mind — when planning a recent survey on the use of a particular park in the Enfield Road area of the city — Parry and her team took care to build elements directly into the survey that would appeal to this cohort.

In practice, this meant not simply designing a survey with simple, age-appropriate questions that could easily be understood by both children and adults but taking the time to incorporate visual and interactive elements like images, graphics, videos, emoji-based questions, and sliders. By adding in opportunities for open-ended responses within the body of the survey, the survey designed by Parry and her team not only received a 30% increase in youth engagement but sets an example for any local authority or organisation seeking to engage with this cohort.

As a part of overcoming the challenge of youth engagement, Parry also spoke about how — after creating that carefully designed survey — she and her team undertook an outreach campaign that involved collaborating with local schools and community groups. While the survey for this consultation leaned heavily on the digital, Parry clarified that she and her team took a hybrid approach to their campaign and prepared paper copies to ensure that their survey was accessible to all. Finally — while the survey was promoted on social media and via QR codes placed on posters within the park — Parry and her colleagues engaged with members of the community in-person at local events, workshops, pop-ups, and via door-to-door outreach to promote the survey as widely as possible.

Feedback and follow up

If a well-designed survey is a key part of any consultation process, then the feedback received from these surveys is even more important. After all, by analysing, acting upon, and communicating about the data they’ve received, local government authorities and organisations are not simply showing the greater value of the consultation process to their communities, but showing their communities that they truly matter.

In the case of Norwich City Council, Parry explained that, on the back of the survey results received, the authority was able to act directly on the feedback provided by local community members with respect to proposed changes to this park. Yet, Parry also pointed out that returned surveys offer a channel for engaging with a community via ongoing feedback, be it delivered via summary reports or brief news updates that offer a snapshot of survey findings or actions to be undertaken. Even better, by openly offering survey feedback to a wider community, local governments create an air of transparency around the consultation process, proactively keeping participants informed and demonstrating how their input has influenced local decision making from the ground up.

When thoughtfully designed and carefully delivered, surveys are an invaluable tool within the wider consultation process. More than delivering actionable results and hard data, they can serve as an exchange for knowledge, understanding, and positive engagement between local authorities and the communities they serve.