Quantitative Online Research Methods

The methods available for online research vary, and can involve the following

Online questionnaires – emailed

This approach involves emailing a hyperlink to a database of respondents, accompanied with a carefully-written introduction to the survey and a request to participate.  As this approach requires respondents’ email addresses, it is most commonly used for surveying customers, staff, or subscribers.  If carefully done, it can also be used for surveying non-customers, if they already have some form of relationship with the client (e.g. if they have provided their email addresses for an online newsletter).

Online questionnaires – ‘pop-up windows’

This approach is ideal if you wish to survey anyone interacting with your website – customers or otherwise (note that the subject of the survey need not be wholly concerned with the website itself). A good ‘pop-up’ questionnaire will be presented to users at random, usually when leaving the website or a specific area within the site.  Steps should also be taken to ensure that frequent visitors to the website will not be asked to participate too often.

Key issues with online surveying

Online questionnaires must be as interactive and ‘intelligent’ as standard websites, if they are not to dissuade respondents. They must also be relatively short, and easily and enjoyably usable by the most novice users, to ensure good response rates and sample representativeness.  Honesty is also crucial, given the suspicion with which many view the web.  This means being open about whom the survey is for, what it will be used for, and how long it will take. Researchers with good online research experience will be able to anticipate and manage a number of other subtle issues.

Website Traffic Measurement

Compared to other communication media, websites are significantly more accountable, and good traffic-measurement software can easily provide such insights as:

• How busy the site is, in terms of visitors, visitor frequency, churn, etc.
• What search terms, search engines, and links visitors are using to find the site.
• What the key entry and exit pages are.
• What sections of the site are used the most; the least; and for how long.
• From which countries visitors are visiting the site.

Considerably more information can also be provided, and this can be invaluable for website content management and accountability – especially if studied in combination with any on or offline marketing campaigns which have been run. Researchers with a sound knowledge of these statistics and what they can represent can reveal important issues, trends, problems and opportunities with clients’ websites.

Key issues with website traffic measurement:  As with all research, close attention must be paid to the methods used to collect the information. Unfortunately in the area of website traffic statistics the technical subtleties can be difficult to learn. Given that many measurement systems are inaccurate, some to a large degree, it is extremely important to ascertain how the traffic data is obtained (in combination with the site’s actual design and construction), before attempting to study it. A researcher with sound knowledge in this area will be able to quickly determine whether the data is worthwhile probing.

Usability Testing
Usability Testing is often regarded as a qualitative approach, because of the informal nature of the interviews and the one-to-one relationship between researcher and respondent.  However, strict usability testing is quantitatively structured, with respondents being given set tasks, and the execution of these tasks being measured click-by-click.