On-site Survey

An on-site survey is a short questionnaire shown to a portion of visitors during their visit, triggered by a behavioural condition.

Three decisions determine the quality of the result: the trigger, the sample and the timing. The trigger defines who is asked, for example a visitor who searched three times without finding anything, while the sample should be small and random so that intrusion stays low and answers stay representative. An open question about what is blocking a purchase usually yields more than a closed satisfaction question, because it returns the visitor's own vocabulary. Two mistakes recur: interrupting someone mid-task, which both abandons the task and produces careless answers, and generalising the percentages to all visitors when only respondents were observed. This is also what separates it from on-page feedback, which is always present and passive, whereas a survey approaches the visitor actively and conditionally.