Snap Version 6
June 2001
Snap Survey Software boxMaking the task of designing, administering and annualizing surveys a more productive and more rewarding experience is at the heart of the latest version of Snap.
Snap 6, which is now released and available as the standard version to any new Snap customers and free of charge to existing users with a maintenance agreement, is packed with enhancements that will appeal to the whole spectrum of users.
Snap is going to ease some of the issues facing survey research activities today: improving productivity, reaching respondents through different interviewing media, using the Internet and improving research deliverables
In this article in the "Focus on..." series, we pull out four areas where the new Snap is going to ease some of the issues facing survey research activities today: improving productivity, reaching respondents through different interviewing media, using the Internet and improving research deliverables.
We spoke to three experienced users for their reactions to Snap 6 and include their reactions. They are John Cooper, academic IT officer at Bath Spa University College; Anne Disley-Riley, research communication manager with the UK banking and finance organization Alliance & Leicester and Stuart Riley (no relation), teaching company co-ordinator at Lancaster University Management School.
Increasing productivity
The pressure is on to move faster and do more in less time. The growth of the Internet has, if anything, increased this pressure to get results out faster. There is a real danger we find ourselves robbed of the time needed to gain insight from the data we collect. Migrating to Snap 6 will go a long way to speeding up the survey processes and stealing back some of that lost time.
The interface has been redesigned to include many of the familiar short cuts and time saving features you find in the standard Microsoft office applications, including a much needed ‘undo’ button. Dialogue boxes, such as for headers and footers, have been redesigned and will be immediately obvious to anyone familiar with Microsoft Excel.
Questionnaires can be worked on collaboratively by a new feature that eases sending a working Snap document (the ‘MDF’ file) as an e-mail attachment. New templates make it faster and easier to customize an entire survey or aspects of a survey. One, aimed at setting up large or wide grids with extensive question text, has the potential to save a lot of time.
On the results side, the ability to shrink oversize pages to fit , plus a full print preview facility in Snap 6 should make dramatic savings in time and effort.
The whole process of learning Snapfor the first time, or increasing your knowledge and understanding once your are beyond the basics, has been streamlined. The old user guide has been expanded into a broader set of slimmer volumes, each dealing with a different stage in the workflow. Within each new guide, clear, attractive layout and presentation, plus a range of smart navigational aids will quickly get you to the descriptions or the examples you need.
Even the training has been streamlined, with a new, fast track training course for the more technically literate, and a specific Internet survey course.
"The new look and feel will help us with the training of students and staff - it will be much more like all the office products that they use..."
John Cooper observes: "The new Microsoft look and feel will help us with the training of students and staff - it will be much more like all the office products that they use. We have shared network printing and students pay for their own printing, so the new fit to page and print preview will be very useful.
Anne Disley-Riley: "What I am most looking forward to is the undo feature - we have got to have this. And the ability to preview on screen: I think this will save a few rain forests!"
Cross-media interviewing
It can be increasingly hard to reach respondents and a traditional paper-based face-to-face or self-completion questionnaire may not give you the spread of participants you need to ensure your survey is truly representative. For some time, Snap has made it possible to approach respondents through a number of different interviewing methods and that has now become even easier with Snap 6.
New templates make it much easier to design questionnaires that will look good and work well in different interviewing environments. There is a new PDA template for handheld CAPI surveys and a range of new Internet survey templates to choose from. These can also make it easier switching a questionnaire from one mode to another, if you need to combine different data collection methods within the same survey.
One cross-media innovation is the ability to present single or multiple choice questions as drop-down boxes on screen. It works equally well for Internet surveys and for CAPI, where it can simplify the appearance of the screens and is especially useful for handheld CAPI, where screen space is at a premium.
The handheld PC market is one that is evolving fast. Snap Surveys, Snap’s producer, has created a rapid development environment in which it will now be able to support a wider range of PDA devices for interviewing and provide that support much closer to the time new models first appear on the market.
John Cooper comments: "We will be going over to non-paper based surveys - much less on paper and more on the Internet. The more automated the process can be, the more reliable the results."
The Internet
Internet and intranet interviewing offers many benefits over more traditional methods in terms of speed, convenience and its ability to reach hard-to-contact groups. Not only is it now easier to do Internet surveys in Snap 6, it is also quicker and more reliable.
Snap 6 supports several simple verification methods to ensure that respondents do not complete your survey more than once. These include new support for cookies, e-mails with generated identifiers embedded in a hyperlink and, via SurveyShop’s low cost hosting service, secure survey administration using SSL encryption methods commonly used in e-commerce activities.
Snap 6 now includes support for a number of web-friendly features such as a wide range of graphical and text buttons and an automatic progress bar
The look and feel of an Internet survey can have a profound influence on participation rates, so it is encouraging that Snap 6 now includes support for a number of web-friendly features such as a wide range of graphical and text buttons and an automatic progress bar to show the respondent how close they are to completing the survey.
The whole process of getting a survey ready for interviewing has been simplified through a new, streamlined ‘publishing’ wizard. Now, both setting up the survey and gathering together the results are simple mouse-click operations.
Stuart Riley: "Snap’s precoding and the integrity checking as it goes along are invaluable for this type of research".
Anne Disley-Riley: "We are looking forward to using Snap’s Internet features as we are going to be using our entrant to update tracking study data regularly. Instead of having to use data that can be up to six months old, we will be able to update on a monthly basis, or more often."
Enhanced deliverables
Today, there is a pressing need to go deeper into the job of interpreting the data, and then to be able to disseminate finds rapidly in ways that are easily understood.
A new charting wizard makes the choices even easier and all presentation options can be adjusted through a single set of controls on screen.
Snap 6 offers more ways to present information more clearly and simply than ever before. A new charting wizard makes the choices even easier and all presentation options can be adjusted through a single set of controls on screen. Up to ten charts or tables can appear on a single page. For any ongoing research projects, tables and charts can be updated automatically as new data are added.
Rapid and reliable dissemination of results can be now be achieved more easily by pasting charts and tables directly into Excel, Word or PowerPoint.
An important innovation is easy to apply confidence level reporting based on the chi square test. John Cooper says: "The confidence level statistics are very welcome - the more analysis facilities in the better. Informing students that this is a significant result in a single line is a useful feature."
Anne Disley-Riley: "We often use Excel to distribute data, as most people have Excel. It will be a big bonus if this is easier to do. The multiple tables and charts per page feature is excellent. I used to have to place tables and charts one at a time on each PowerPoint page."
Stuart Riley: "I’m a great fan of data reduction principles. My goal is always: don’t have any ink that doesn’t carry information. I always choose the format with the least embellishments. I never ever need to go beyond what will do."
Conclusions
Migrating to Snap 6 will mean you are ready to take on the challenges faced in carrying out research in a fast changing and ever more complex world. While technology alone cannot overcome all the issues facing researchers and those conducting surveys today, the many improvements offered in Snap 6 should help you to work smarter and get the results you want both quickly and reliably.
We leave the last word to Anne Disley-Riley: "We are really excited - I can’t wait to start using Snap 6!