This document summarizes the business requirements for a survey tool for use by small businesses and non-profits. The requirements listed here detail the range of features and functions associated with that solution. This document will also list features that have been discussed, but have not been included in the requirements because they are out of scope. A detailed description of why they are out of scope will also be provided.
The system is a simple, effortless easy to survey system. It should allow for the creation and management of useful surveys that is not only widely accessible but also allows for the creation of surveys that have a greater return of value to the initiating organization than existing survey tools. Al this without requiring extensive technical knowledge on the part of the organization using it.
At a high level the survey tool should be:
Usable and accessible
Affordable
Written to allow best-of-breed, modular integration
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." - From The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.
The idea is not to create bloated software, but rather to create software that is as useful as possible.
Primary technical problems to resolve:
Generated Survey - Should be accessible via web and portable devices.
Survey Designer - The survey designer (Design, Preview)
Email List - Creation and Management
Reporting - The interface for survey response reporting
Registration for use & Login => Survey Monkey does a good job
Include Community - Use community to build better surveys by sharing complete surveys, questions, fields (taggable, searchable)
Recycle questions, asking for survey question suggestions, testing surveys prior to release should all be included Questions can be extracted from surveys created by other users and developers. Questions already added to a survey can be duplicated with a click of a button for rapid question building by simply editing in modifications to create a new question.
Tool should be usable on the web, hand-held devices touch sensitive screens or in kiosks. Much of this can be achieved by allowing the inclusion of different style sheets for different media types. Optional: can even generate a paper based questionnaire.