When creating a survey, the structure and flow of topics, sequencing of questions, and the writing style are very important and can be used by the researcher to make the questionnaire friendlier to the respondent.

The "funnel" technique. Start with broad, general interest questions that are easy for the respondent to answer. These questions serve to warm up the respondent and get them involved in the survey. In the middle, place the most difficult questions, those that take time to think about, and those that are of less general interest. At the end, we again place general questions that are easier to answer and of broad interest and application. Typically, these last questions include demographic and other classification questions.

When building a survey that needs to be a little more interesting, you might try inserting "ringer or throw away" questions to increase interest and willingness to respond. These questions are about hot topics of the day and often have little to do with the survey. While these questions will definitely spice up a boring survey, they require valuable space that could be devoted to the main topic of interest. Use this type of question with caution.

Keep Your Survey Short. Questionnaires should be kept short and to the point. Most long surveys are not completed. A quick look at a survey containing page after page of boring questions produces a response of "there is no way I'm going to complete this thing". If a questionnaire is long, the person must either be very interested in the topic, a true bleeding heart, an employee, or paid for their time. Internet surveys have some advantage because the respondent will often not see all of the survey at once. However if your survey sends them to page after page of questions, your response rate will drop off dramatically.

How long is too long? The general rule of thumb is to keep the survey short, typically less than five to ten minutes. At six questions per minute, and depending on the question difficulty, you are limited to about 30-40 questions. When building a survey, remember that one open end text question counts for three multiple choice questions, depending of course on the difficulty of the question. While only a rule of thumb, this formula will accurately predict the limits of your survey.