Confirmit 12 has been officially released and it features a variety of interesting features that look like they will have a positive impact on both survey developers and users.

For those who don’t know, Confirmit is one of the most prominent online survey software packages. It is used by a number of market research agencies and allows for pretty complicated, interesting surveys. Frankly, I would probably use Confirmit if I could except for the fact that the price tag is higher than I want/need/can afford to spend.

Points to Confirmit for making part of their new release about improving the user experience: some of the new features include a new hierarchy selector (which could be used, say, to let you pick a state and then narrow it down to the city); a new slider for entering numbers (not the first time such a feature has been implemented in a survey software package both GMI and Vovici offer sliders too) which could be fun for scale-type questions; a card sort feature, which allows the respondent to drag and drop responses into different piles. Two improvements I especially like are the "highlight required grid input field" which can be used to show the user precisely which answer they forgot to fill in and the AJAX dynamic content, which makes it possible for other questions to appear or disappear on the page depending on the results of other questions on the same page (without a page refresh).

Confirmit 12 also allows for different images to appear in answers depending on the state of the response. Simply put, this means that you can have one image shown when the answer is not selected (such as an empty check box) and replace it with a different image when the image is selected (such as a checked check box).

Confirmit 12 has new security features as well, although to my untrained eye they don’t seem all that exciting. That is, they’re not so much about protecting the data as much as they are about encrypting the information that is shown to the respondent (so they can’t figure out your secret methodologies). Confirmit 12 does make it possible to set an option that requires the survey to be conducted over a secure, encrypted connection.

Confirmit adds new survey development features, including additional information within the context of the project overview, the ability to increase the size of text box text, and an easier to use URL setup page. The scripting editor also includes a code completion feature similar to what you might find in Visual Studio or Flash. This feature makes it easier to write code by suggesting functions, methods, and properties that are context appropriate.

On the back-end, Confirmit 12 includes a new data processing engine which adds new data import features, data cleaning, recoding and merging features, and new data exports.

Confirmit Express, the simpler version of the survey system, also includes a variety of new features such as a new user administration interface, MS Word export and the ability to quickly and easily test surveys.

For a full list of new features, see the Confirmit web site.

• Confirmit 12 new feature list
• Confirmit 12 web site

…which I suppose is fine if you’re trying to run the software on Linex, or on a Macintosh, or on some other kind of platform where you only received new updates intermittently and always wished you could use the latest version.

However, if you’re on a Windows PC and are used to using a version of SPSS that is fully integrated into the Windows operating system, then the new version is a little jarring — and perhaps even a little annoying.

All of the same functionality is there as before — SPSS gets credit for that one. They must have put a lot of work into recreating every function in Java for SPSS 16. Most of the dialog boxes even look similar. All of the menus now have spiffy little icons which I’m sure will be helpful when it comes to quickly locating the option that you’re looking for.

Furthermore, all of SPSS 16 dialog boxes are resizable. All of them. Sometimes the way in which it resizes makes more sense than others, but it is especially handly to be able to resize some of the smaller dialog boxes where it was hard to see what you were doing.

Buy as a Windows user who is used to all of the Windows controls — you know, all of the standard drop down fields and the standard buttons, and the standard checkboxes — the switch to Java is a little wierd. Things in SPSS 16.0 don’t have the same feel as they used to. Things feel a little sluggish. Everything feels a bit like one of those online calculators or games that are written in Java.

But like I said before, everything seems to work. All of the buttons are in the same place they used to be. And if it speeds up the development time for new features — if it makes it possible for SPSS to meet my needs better in the future — then I’m willing to give it a shot and hope that I get used to what feels like a step backwards.

The jury is still out.

TopTenReviews recently published their evaluations of ten "value-priced" survey software packages (I say "value-priced because they are all below $600 for the entire system).

The systems they looked at were Survey Crafter Professional from SurveyCrafter, StatPac by StatPac, The Survey System by Creative Research Systems, FormArtist by Quask, SumQuest by SumQuest, EZSurvey by Raosoft, Survey Said by Marketing Masters, Survey Gold by Golden Hills Software, Survey Genie by William Steinberg Consultants and iMagic Survey Pro by iMagic Software.

The reviewers at TopTen selected Survey Crafter Professional as their favorite because it has "the perfect balance of creative freedom coupled with strong statistical analysis." StatPac Survey Software was rated second highest followed by The Survey System which was given third place.

Although the reviews are fairly short, if you’re looking for a fairly inexpensive system ranging from $100 to $600 these reviews are probably enough to get you started.

• TopTenReview’s Survey Software Report 2007
• Survey Crafter Pro web site
• StatPac Survey Software web site
• The Survey System web site
• Quask FormArtist web site
• SumQuest Survey Software web site
• Raosoft EZSurvey web site
• Survey Said web site
• Golden Hills Software’s SurveyGold
• William Steinberg Consultant’s Survey Genie
• iMagic Survey Software

In the March 2007 issue of Research, Tim Macer reviewed streamBASE GmbH’s Coding-Modul, a program specifically designed to assist in the process of coding a significant number of open-ended questions. Tim gave the software a generally positive review (4 out of 5 for ease of use; 4.5 out of 5 for value). 

Tim liked the fact that Coding-Modul was a well-crafted system full of practical features for coding; that it allows you to easily distribute ‘packages’ of coding work to non-net connected individuals who are using standalone PCs; that it integrates seamlessly with Readsoft Forms; and that it has powerful administrative features to manage workflow.

Coding-Modul lost points because it is windows-based only; that automation features for typed texts are limited and that the documentation is not yet available in English (although it may be now).

• Read Tim Macer’s review of Coding-Modul
• Learn more about Coding-Modul at the stramBASE GmbH web site

Found an interesting comparison between the features of SPSS and STATA (two statistical analysis packages), as provided by several statisticians on Windows Live Spaces:

SPSS Advantages:

• Slightly more user friendly in making complex tables & graphs
• Nice routines for testing interactions in logistic regression models
• Friendly ANOVA commands
• Generally easier to use
• Sophisticated survival analysis

STATA Advantages:

• Much easier to run a probit
• Much better documentation
• Can do a lot more procedures than SPSS
• Great company support, friendly user base
• Multiple pooled cross sectional time series routines
• Count procedures (poisson, negative binomial and zero routines)
• Maximum likelihood estimators (Tobit, multinomial logit, ordinal logit, ordinal probit)
• Huber-White correction for heteroskedascity
• More comprehensive ANOVA routines
• Cox regression
• Duration analysis procedures
• Capability to estimate models for complex surveys
• Better weighting capability (pweights vs. aweights and iweights)
• Ability to take clustering into account
• Lots of user written solutions
• Much better handling of longitudinal panel data
• Event history analysis capabilities
• Panel data analysis capabilities
• Faster development than SPSS
• Better leasing arrangement

What this all means to market researchers I cannot say — I generally in my day to day life do not use many of the statistical procedures they describe and I’ve never tried STATA.

• Read the full comments

Let’s face it: an online survey is, at its heart, simply a collection of forms. Super long forms with many pages and twisty questions yes, but still forms. And built into the very architecture of the world wide web are the tools that are needed to build forms (and ultimately, surveys). So what is the point of building a service that’s only point is to build forms? Who would use it?

Enter Wufoo.com, the Web 2.0 answer to online forms. Creating forms has really never been so easy or so much fun. Or so much fun to look at. Or so smooth. As someone else pointed out somewhere else, this service makes you wish you had a need for a form so that you could use Wufoo to build it. It really is that neat.

Can you make surveys using Wufoo? Not really. I mean, I suppose if you had a really simple survey that you wanted to execute, you probably could. It does let you do multiple choice questions, open-ended questions, and single-response questions. It even has special fields that help respondents enter prices, addresses, e-mail addresses and dates (all of the things one might regularly enter in a form). But there are also a lot of survey-related things that it doesn’t let you do, like create multiple pages, or validate responses in a meaningful way (other than to require the fields). I would hazard to say that as far as survey capabilities go, SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang have more features, as well as libraries of templates you can use to get you started. These are, after all, programs that were specifically designed to help you create surveys.

One thing that was a little annoying — I spent about five minutes designing a form and clicked the "Themes" button to make it look extra pretty — only to discover that my form had completely disappeared! I had assumed that my changes were being saved as I went and never even noticed the "Save Form" button at the bottom-right corner of the page. Make sure you push it when you are done or your simple survey will end up be simpler than you intended. And then you’ll have to start over from scratch.

With that said, I wish SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang, and even the package I use, GMI Net-MR, would take a page from the Wufoo design/survey development book and create an interface that is as fun and as easy to use. I would get a lot more work done.

Wufoo offers a variety of pricing plans, ranging from free accounts (the "gratis" plan) which lets you create 3 forms with up to 10 fields each and accept up to 100 entries a month. The next plan up (the "ad hoc" plan) costs only $9 a month and allows you to have up to 10 forms with an unlimited number of fields and accept up to 500 entries. There is also the "bona fide" account (unlimited forms, 3000 responses a month), the "carpe diem" plan (15,000 responses a month) and the "ad infinitum" plan (no limits, total cost is $199 a month).

And if you are trying to create an online form to collect data, and don’t want to mess around with the basic HTML building blocks, and if you want the chance to play with the newest and greatest of what’s out there, then give Wufoo a try.

• Wufoo.com

Tim Macer recently reviewed GMI’s Research Analyzer in the February 2007 issue of Research Magazine. Research Analyzer is a fairly easy to use package for analyzing your data and creating reports without the usual hassle that comes from a more "statistical" program like SPSS. Basically, take everything you would do to analyze your data in Excel or SPSS and develop a program that is specifically designed to streamline the process and you get GMI Analyzer. Tim gave the program a 3.5 out of 5 for ease of use; a 4.5 out of 5 for cross-platform compatability; and a 4 out of 5 for value for money.

Tim liked the fact that GMI Research Analyzer is easy to master without taking a class; it has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface; it neatly combines online data serving with offline convenience; and it has a serious range of analytical capabilities. He didn’t like the fact that controlling the look and feel of the output could be difficult; that it dosn’t support the making of blanket changes to tables and charts that are already set up; and he didn’t think there was enough documentation.

Compare GMI Research Analyzer to SPSS Desktop Reporter and web-based MarketSight.

• Read Tim Macer’s review of GMI Research Analyzer 2.0
• Visit the GMI Research Analyzer web site

The October, 2006 issue of Research Magazine contains a review by Tim Macer of Techneos Entryware 6, a software package that works primarily with Palm handhelds (but also with Microsoft based handhelds) to create surveys and collect data in the field.

Tim liked the fact that the software works either online or offline and isn’t dependent on a permanent internet or wireless connection and that its automatic reminder function made it a great tool for self-completion diary studies. He didn’t like the fact that it is a standalone mobile and web solution without support for CATI or paper and that it offers only basic, inflexible reporting.

During my time at Paramount Parks I was actually a Techneos customer and was very pleased with both the flexibility and the ease of use of the software (we used the professional edition rather than the Enterprise edition). It has a thoughtfully designed interface, both in the survey designer and in the data collection module. The only thing that didn’t work for us was the pricing scheme, but I will readily admit that this was very likely tied to the unique way in which we were using the software.

Read Tim’s full review at Meaning.

SurveyZ is an entirely web-based, self-service internet survey system developed and operated by Utah-based Qualtrics. It offers a variety of advanced capabilities, including unique survey questions, branching, looping, piping, trigger-based responses and form grading as well as an unparalleled collection of pre-written surveys that you can borrow questions from or use as the basis for your own surveys. The design and organization of the SurveyZ survey development environment isn’t particularly impressive (it looks like something out of 1998), and the design options for the surveys themselves are fairly limited — yet the design process is fairly smooth and even the most complex surveys can be created by individuals with very little experience. SurveyZ has a built in e-mail invitation system and a very limited reporting engine. All in all, if you’re looking for a survey system that can do just about anything and you don’t care so much about design or reporting, SurveyZ may have everything you need.

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Opinio 5 is a well-designed, easy to use and highly customizable internet survey system published by Oslo, Norway based ObjectPlanet. The software, which is available both as a hosted service and as an application you can install on your own web server, offers all of the major features you would expect to find in a moderately advanced packaged with a few very powerful and interesting extras (and a couple of notable deficits). It is perfect for a corporate research department or organization with users at several levels — novice will find it fairly easy to create smart looking surveys very quickly, while more advanced users will be able to control precisely how the surveys look and feel. Opinio also offers a highly configurable reporting engine that for some applications may completely replace the need to examine the results in an outside data analysis package. The software is well priced, extensible, and is definitely worthy of consideration for any midsized research department looking for a flexible, easy to manage internet survey package.

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U.K. based Research journal reviewer Tim Macer recently published a review of ETabs AutoGraph 2.0, a program designed to assist in the “desktop creation of indivudual or repetitive charts and tables from most industry-standard tables for output to Excel or Powerpoint including Quantum, Merlin through TabsML, Pulse Train’s XtabsML, Wincross, Quanvert, Snap, Dimensions, Mentor, and SPSS tables, or direct imput from Pulsar.

Macer rates Autograph as a 4.5 out of 5 for ease of use; 5 out of 5 for cross-platform compatability; and 4.5 out of 5 for value for money. To read the complete review, visit Research Magazine.

For more details about AutoGraph from the company, visit the E-Tabs web site.

ResearchExec, owned and operated by the Fairfield, Connecticut based company of the same name, is an entirely web-based survey system that is available either as a hosted solution or as a package you can install on your own server. It offers a tremendous amount of customizability as well as a number of advanced features such as the ability to set quotas for individual questions and advanced survey logic. It has integrated panel management that allows you to send surveys to specific members based on their responses to previous surveys. The survey development system, while elegantly designed and extremely flexible, is tedious to use and does not play well with FireFox 1.5 or Internet Explorer 7 RC1. It offers very little in terms of a reporting system, and you should expect to do most of your analysis in a separate program such as Excel or SPSS. Because of the focus on advanced features, the sharper learning curve and the lack of a reporting engine, ResearchExec is more likely to appeal to users at a professional research firm and not those looking for a quick easy way to produce and report on internet research.

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Beeliner Surveys is a simple, easy-to-use and extremely inexpensive online survey service operated by Cambridge, Massachusetts based @Spinfish Web/ROG. Although its survey capabilities and design flexibility are very limited, the system is very easy to use and it includes some very unique and useful features, such as the ability to include full surveys within e-mail messages and create custom reports that can be saved and reused. While the program does have some security issues and while it does very much limit your options in terms of the types of questions you can ask, organizations looking to conduct a quick and easy survey may find the program does what they need at a price they can afford.

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Grapevine 3.0 is a moderately priced, relatively full-featured online self-service survey solution published by Toronto-based Business.ca. It offers most of the basic features, a few of the advanced features, and a collection of well designed, pre-written surveys and design templates that are sure to appeal to small companies and organizations who aren’t looking to spend a lot of time reinventing the marketing research wheel. The survey design/management interface is fairly easy to master, although the non-Web 2.0 driven survey development environment can sometimes be a little slow and frustrating. The system includes a lovely reporting engine, the ability to add multiple users to one account, the ability to upload lists of respondents (and send out invitations) and a fairly strong help system. While I am not so sure that I would recommend this package for advanced users or firms that intend to do a lot of research, it may be a very appropriate choice for a firm that finds the pre-written, pre-designed surveys worth the cost. 

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Every September it seems like a new and very slightly improved edition of SPSS is released — this year is no exception, and in just a few weeks SPSS 15.0 will hit the streets with a few new minor features that may (or may not) improve the way your charts and graphs look; change the way you organize your data, and even provide you with a few additional statistical tools and programmatic capabilities that you never knew you were missing. So, am I going to rush out to order this new and exciting version? Probably not.

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