I'm thinking about setting up a booth in a few malls and conducting some surveys with people. Is there any tips/resources/books on writing/asking the right questions to get the most amount of useful data?
* For evaluations use a rating system of 1 to 7 where 1 is low and 7 is high. It must be an odd number so that there is always a forced middle optional available. More than 7 is too many points of evaluation and less than 7 is too few.
* The questions should be worded in a way that asks a question with precision. Do not provide open ended questions. Force the user to make a decision with confidence.
* Always remember the goal of a survey is to gather data that distills to qualified measures in the aggregate. Know what data you want to see before writing your questions in such a way that you can draw directly logical correlations between data points without making biased assumptions upon the data.
* Yes/no boolean type questions are acceptable, but impose a forced dichotomy, which is less precise, and that lower precision could cloud your data.
* Don't ask questions that impose a hypothetical or ask the user for their wishes or desired futures. These always result in poorly informed bias. Instead ask such questions in such a way that asks for reflections from facts or past events. Its your job as the expert to determine solutions moving forward.