Abstract

Too often, surveys and their materials are designed for the analyst, rather than the respondent, resulting in a cumbersome respondent experience with low response rates. Increasing demand for self-completion surveys means we can no longer rely on skilled interviewers to improve the experience and secure responses. Instead, we must achieve our survey goals by empowering our respondents. This empowerment begins at the very first point of contact, in our communications inviting respondents to the survey. This includes not only the advance letters, but even the envelopes which contain them. We must recognise that if we cannot engage and motivate our respondents to open this mail and take the actions directed within, we have lost them at the first step.

This session will share information on an innovative approach called ‘Respondent Centred Design’ (RCD). It challenges the status quo by putting respondents’ needs at the heart of product development. It encourages you to stop designing based on assumptions and instead to listen to respondents needs. Only then can you maximise response and collect more accurate data without compromising the analyst's needs. Overall, this approach aims to refocus our investment to the beginning of the data lifecycle, to the design phase, by prioritising the respondent and enhancing their end-to-end experience. This method is being used at the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) to transform the Labour Force Survey. Drawing on experience, the speaker will:

- Share why moving to RCD is necessary
- Discuss how to design respondent centred survey materials
- Demonstrate the practical application of RCD through ONS case studies on development of advance letters and envelopes
- Highlight the impact of this work via response rates obtained during quantitative trials