Questionnaires

Questionnaires are a great way to help understand your audience; what they like and what they want within a magazine. Earlier in the year, when I was planning my magazine, I used a questionnaire to get a sense of what my target audience wanted out of my magazine and then I used the results to help me make a magazine my target audience would like.

Questionnaires are easy to produce and the questions can be tailored to my needs; making sure to ask the questions that will answer what I need to know. It is possible to distribute questionnaires in a high volume whether that is through using an online questionnaire where anyone can access it (e.g. surverymonkey) or personally handing out my questionnaire to people.

Since the respondents are anonymous, it allows me to get real opinions from them as they won't be influenced by having their name connected with their response. Though, it is possible that the answers may not be true opinions, as it's fairly easy to lose interest half way through a questionnaire. However, this is not something that can be helped.

As part of my evaluation I plan to do one last, overall questionnaire, allowing me to get a final view of my audience's opinion on my final product. The questionnaire will include both open and closed questions.

Closed – The data from closed questionnaires are measurable. There are a set number of answers given to each question so a percentage can be calculated. However, in closed questions there is often little opportunity for responders to expand their response, or give state their true opinion if it is not mentioned in the set answers.

Open – An open questionnaire allows the audience to give their full, true opinion and allows me to get real and 'unengineered' responses. However, these responses are difficult to measure.