tarngerine says that surveys should be for quantitative data, whilst iab says they can be for qualitative data. Until tarngerine's comments, my own thoughts were that surveys could be useful for gathering various comments and views about a problem; unless a pool of respondents was large enough and sampled without bias, the data might not be significant enough to use to inform choices.
I'm currently due to start my first, full project (from start to prototype). It's not a big project. It's one of three problem spaces that we've been offered. I chose "holiday travel with children under five". Rather than make up a problem, I feel more comfortable starting from scratch, so I want to find out more about just what is involved. I've vaguely decided to:
i) interview two or three parents (perhaps including a nursery nurse) to just talk through their experience of travelling with young kids
ii) search for and look through online discussions and mentions of travelling with kids
iii) produce a survey to solicit comments from a broader group of people (I know more people online than I do IRL, I think)
But I'm wondering if the survey is really necessary at this point, whilst I'm still in search of a set of potential problems? Particularly if, in interviews, I can drill down on particular comments that might signpost to significant details. Would the survey be better off used once I've identified a potential problem and want to really define its boundaries? If that's the case, presumably it would be useful in setting the brief and user requirements/ constraints?
Any input... gratefully received
