by E. Marie Robertson, Web Team Project Manager
September 27, 2005 – Surveys are an important part of the way L&S operates, and placing surveys on the web makes great sense in terms of broadening their reach. But the two most popular web survey creation tools currently in use by L&S departments have some major drawbacks that mean they can't reach everyone no matter how prominent their online placement.
Zoomerang and Survey Monkey share a number of their most positive qualities: both are relatively inexpensive and apparently easy to use to design, generate, and collect data from online surveys. Both are in use on the UC Berkeley campus. However, both tools create surveys that are inaccessible and unusable by potential respondents who depend upon screen readers or other assistive technologies.
As a public University receiving federal funds, such access isn't just "the right thing to do" at UC Berkeley. The University is required by law to be in compliance with Section 508 of the federal Rehabilitation Act, one segment of which outlines the criteria web-based intranet and Internet "information and applications" must meet. Particularly applicable in this instance is section (n), which states:
When electronic forms are designed to be completed on-line, the form shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of the form, including all directions and cues.
Based on responses to inquiries made of both companies, neither Survey Monkey nor Zoomerang seems to place a high priority on improving the level of accessibility of their products. If you have developed or plan to develop an online survey using either of these tools, plan alternatives so that users of assistive technologies may participate as well. For example, recreate your survey in multiple formats that can be accessed by users of assistive technologies, such as a plain text document, email or straight HTML page, and provide a phone number or email address for requests and responses. In addition, contact the maker of the product you use, and let them know full support for assistive technologies is important to you as a customer, not just because of legal requirements, but also because of one of the basics of survey design: anything that "pre-screens" your respondent population in any way does not yield accurate representative results.
