Perhaps you have heard about the latest American Wives and Sex survey from AOL and Cookie Magazine. As someone who has designed Internet surveys, I thought I'd give it a look. Oh goodness.
If Comedy Central were doing a skit on survey design, this would be it. If a slot machine were as rigged as this survey, the gaming commission would shut down the casino. If a college student designed a survey that was this lame, the school would be justified in having the kid flogged in the campus center. This isn't a survey, it's an advertisement for AOL and Cookie Magazine.
This survey is so savagely incompetent that I am in awe at how many different media outlets covered it. The headline at the top of the first page of the survey reads in large bold type ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH? ANY? And take a look at the pictures that go along with the questions:
This is the survey equivalent of walking into a voting booth and there's an air-brushed poster of John McCain kissing a baby above the voting machine.
