Amy Lindahl's blog

You don't have to be a data nerd to create totally awesome insights from your surveys

As a product of the awesome 80's, I fondly remember the 1984 hit movie "Revenge of the Nerds". The film chronicled the journey of several outcast nerds as they try to form a fraternity in college and fit in with the popular crowd. However, the nerds despite their super human intelligence and analysis capacity did not fit in with the "in" crowd . By flexing their brain power, by the end of the movie, the nerds finally overcame adversity. You too can get nerdy with your survey data and still be one of the cool kids in the room. So put on your Ray Bans and get ready to flex your gray matter, here are three data nerd tips from Zoomerang's power users.

Don't lose what you already know

You just finished collecting all of your survey responses, made some initial analysis and now you're ready create a killer presentation that will "wow" your boss and solicit "Ohs and "Aahs" from your peers. But, how can you pick the best charts and graphs to represent your survey data? In a world of information overload it's important to choose the right visualizations for your data set. You need to create visualizations that will make it easy to focus on the data that is important. Here are some examples of charts and graphs that you can create from your Zoomerang survey data and show the insights that matter.

Pie Charts:

So your boss just came over and asked you to create a customer satisfaction survey  or an event planning survey. You’re not really sure where to start and don’t have a lot of spare time for the new project. You have a limited bandwidth to create a survey, gather survey responses, and create a nifty presentation for your boss. It's time to become a survey rockstar and blow some market research minds. So put on your spandex pants and platform shoes and get to work.

First step, create a survey. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Do you know the goal of your survey and the questions you need to ask? Jot them down in a word doc or type them down in a text file. Once you have crafted your survey and questions you can paste it into Zoomerang in the handy dandy text import. In seconds your survey notes are magically transformed into a real online survey and…Whoa you just gained 20 minutes back in your day.

Have you ever wanted to celebrate a friend or co-workers life changing event by making them something special?

You can use an online survey to crowdsource your friends or co-workers sentiments in one place. From the survey answers, you can create a keepsake book to commemorate a new baby, celebrate a wedding, or send well wishes to a sick cubemate. All you need is an online survey, a printer and a dash of creativity.

Get started by creating an online survey to collect sentiments. You should include the following two questions in your survey-