International Journal of Public Opinion Research Advance Access originally published online on February 17, 2005
International Journal of Public Opinion Research 2005 17(3):346-361; doi:10.1093/ijpor/edh067
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Can You Judge a Questionnaire by its Cover? The Effect of Questionnaire Cover Design on Mail Survey Response
Philip Gendall is Professor of Marketing at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Correspondence should be addressed to: Professor Philip Gendall, Department of Marketing, Massey University, Private Bag 11–222, Palmerston North, New Zealand. E-mail: p.gendall{at}massey.ac.nz
Some questionnaire cover designs produce higher response rates in mail surveys than others. Various explanations for this have been proposed, including the level of complexity of different covers and the degree of contrast between them, but none have been supported when subsequently tested. An alternative approach is to draw on the experience of advertising. Regardless of how advertisements are created, more likeable advertisements are generally more effective than less likeable ones. This paper reports research designed to test the same proposition applied to questionnaire cover designs. The suggestion that likeability might predict the effectiveness of questionnaire cover design in a mail survey received some support from seven studies described in this paper. For five of the six comparisons that involved only graphic designs, the most likeable cover produced a higher response rate, with an average increase of around 2 percent. For mail survey practitioners, the best advice seems to be that they should consider using a ‘likeable’ questionnaire cover design, preferably a simple, neutral graphic design; but be aware that the effect of cover design on response is likely to be relatively small.