Guides
Practical guides to survey research.
Plan your sample, write clearer questions, and review response quality. These guides draw on research literature and the work of building Plumeform. You can use the advice with any survey tool.
8 min read
Choosing a survey tool for Prolific studies
Compare ID capture, completion redirects, screening and other panel features in Qualtrics, Typeform, Google Forms and Plumeform.
6 min read
Prolific completion codes, set up right
The three URLs of a panel study, why you redirect AND show the code, what screened-out participants need, and the two-minute pre-launch test.
7 min read
How to stop duplicate survey participants
Understand duplicate responses and the limits of browser checks, then set up participant-ID controls.
8 min read
How to screen survey participants
Write neutral eligibility questions, set quota limits, and give screened-out participants a clear ending.
7 min read
Random assignment in survey experiments
Running a real A/B experiment inside a survey: server-side assignment, condition-driven branching, and the audit trail your analysis needs.
7 min read
Informed consent for online surveys
What the consent screen must communicate, a copy-paste template, honest withdrawal language for anonymous data, and a gate that records nothing on decline.
7 min read
How many survey responses do you need?
The margin-of-error math without the jargon, the sample sizes worth memorizing, and why your response rate decides more than your audience size.
9 min read
How to catch low-quality survey responses
Review timing, answer patterns and duplicate signals, then document your exclusion rules.
8 min read
How to write attention check questions
The four types of checks, the writing rules that catch careless responders without punishing honest ones, and what to do with failures.
7 min read
Survey randomization, explained
Understand order effects, choose what to shuffle, and document your randomization setup.
9 min read
Likert scale best practices
Five or seven points, midpoint or not, labels, item wording, matrix batteries people finish, and what the numbers honestly support.
Put the numbers to work
Paste ten SUS ratings per respondent to calculate individual scores and the group mean. See the scoring formula and excluded rows. Everything runs in your browser.
Paste paired Kano responses to see all six categories, category ties and satisfaction coefficients. Use the five documented response codes for one feature at a time.
Paste four price thresholds per response to plot Van Westendorp curves. Review exclusions and crossings, with transparent definitions and no data upload.
Calculate a response target from confidence level, margin of error, and population size. Estimate invitations using your expected response rate.
Estimate survey length from question types and reading load. Get a transparent planning range before testing with real participants.
Randomly allocate numbered participants to balanced groups and download a CSV. Free, with no sign-in or participant names required.
Build a 4, 5, 6, or 7-point rating scale with written labels for agreement, satisfaction, frequency, importance, likelihood, and quality. Copy the options straight into your survey.
Check a survey question for reading level, sentence length, double-barrelled asks, negations, and vague quantifiers. Runs in your browser with no account.
Calculate the margin of error for a survey percentage from your sample size, confidence level, and population. See the confidence interval around your result.
Compare two survey percentages with a chi-square test of two proportions. Enter counts for each group and read the difference, the p-value, and the caveats.
Calculate Net Promoter Score from promoter, passive and detractor counts, with a confidence interval to show sampling uncertainty.