Last updated: 21 May 2024
Beta surveys
We use short online beta surveys to gather customer feedback when a new online service has gone live.
Considerations
If you’re creating a survey, you must consider the:
- purpose of the survey. Ask yourself what kind of data you want to collect and what you’re going to do with it
- cognitive burden that specific types of questions can place on the user. For example, open ended questions can deliver honest feedback, but they also place effort on the user who can quickly lose attention
- type of questions to use to get the best information from the user. If you want to compare data across different services, you should ask the same or very similar questions in each survey. For example, you might use open-ended question, closed-ended questions, ratings or multiple-choice questions.
You should also:
- avoid leading questions
- not ask for personal information or data that could identify a user
- use a maximum of 6 questions
- write in plain English and follow our content standards
- comply with accessibility requirements, including background colour, button colour and branding
- use a link to take users to the survey page. Avoid pop-up surveys. They are perceived as a nuisance, confuse users, and increase website loading time
- include the survey link in a confirmation page and email. This gives the user a second opportunity to complete the survey if they missed it the first time
- disable the survey on the agreed date.
How to introduce a survey
If you link to a survey in a confirmation page or email you should:
- include a heading to separate the survey from the rest of the information
- use a short sentence to explain what the survey is for
- link to survey within the sentence that explains what the survey is for
For example:
Heading: Complete our feedback survey
Content: This is a new service. Please complete our short survey to tell us what you think of it.
Surveys and consultations
Software used for surveys and consultations must adhere to GDPR regulations.
All survey and consultation forms must be requested from the Business Intelligence Team.
Snap Survey
Snap Survey is the corporate survey and consultation service we use at Medway Council. It is GDPR-compliant.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is a survey platform.
We cannot use SurveyMonkey because it is no longer GDPR-compliant.
Its servers are located in the United States, which may or may not necessarily have data protection compliance as required by UK GDPR.
The platform adheres to the Privacy Shield framework, which governs how data is transferred to and from the US and the EU. However, Privacy Shield was declared invalid by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on 16 July 2020.
Event bookings
Software used for event bookings must adhere to GDPR regulations.
Eventbrite
We can use Eventbrite as an event booking and ticketing service at the council.
It has been certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework agreement and can receive UK personal data through a UK-US data bridge.
We will not just link to a council-run event on Eventbrite. We must create a brief webpage on Medway Council’s website about the event that then signposts people to the Eventbrite platform to complete their registration. This new webpage must include a link to the Eventbrite privacy policy for transparency purposes.
Request an event booking form
You can come to the Digital team if you need an event booking form.
We can only create your booking form if:
- our Jadu forms software meets your requirements
- our team have capacity.
Complete the request a new online service form to request a booking form.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Find out more about GDPR on the Information Commissioner's Office website.
Read more about our forms and data protection.
Accessibility Toolkit
Our accessibility toolkit contains guidance, tutorials and learning resources to help you make documents and web pages accessible.
Contact the Digital team
You can get in touch with us if you have a question or cannot find what you're looking for.