Designing a web survey

[takethetrain]

Hello everyone,

I created a survey for my company recently, which clients use to evaluate our performance after a project has been completed. The survey is rather lengthy, and it's hideous! Once I get the free time, I'm going to redesign it. Do any of you have any tips to get me started?

Things I'm concerned with:

• Easy to understand (I guess that refers to usability)
• Follows web standards (I design in CSS and XHTML)
• Should it be separated into multiple pages, or all on one scrolling page?

I've tried to look for tips on Google but I keep coming up with *actual* surveys instead of tips on designing them. If folks have any links to articles or good examples, I'd appreciate you posting them here.

Thanks!!

[Neupix]

You might want to look into a service such as http://wufoo.com/, which lets you build a survey pretty quickly and track the results. From what I understand they can be easily embedded into an existing website through iframes.

The example forms also act as a great source of inspiration.

[takethetrain]

Great, thanks Neupix! I don't think I'll use the service for this particular situation, but you're right, the forms are really nice. I like that manage to do that without messing too much with the browser's default form elements. Too many designers try to perfect the appearance of form elements when the browser has already done it for them!