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archive for May, 2010

Surveys: Design for Insights and Action

It started as a simple tweet: can you help and fill out this survey?  We’ll share results to all who participate.  Interested in the topic, I clicked on the link only to find a very short, poorly designed survey.  The survey had seven questions (not counting the email capture for results sharing) of which several were closed ended essentially binary questions — i.e, “yes”, “no” and “maybe” were the only answer options.  There were two open ends to collect unaided recall of favorite cause marketing programs and past participation in cause marketing programs.

I … Read more

Data Literacy

In last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Wired Magazine contributing editor Guy Wolf profiled self-trackers — individuals who track their daily habits, whatever they may be — in The Data Driven Life.  Wolf acknowledges that people have long tracked their behavior — e.g., recording checks, noting their weight, caloric intake and output, etc.  But, in the past, that tracking was done by paper and pen. And, it was private.  Now, self-trackers have no shortage of web and mobile applications and devices that allow them to not only digitally record … Read more