Heartland

Size ? Volume ? What is the word?

I'm working on a questionnaire and need the appropriate wording to ask whether the X of a magazine is ok. It must work for a print magazine and for an online magazine.

Wording so far: "Magazine X has just the right size". But it's not about the actual "size" (how many pages, A4 or A5 etc). The question is referring to the amount of information contained in one issue of the magazine.

How would one ask, or rather, what's the appropriate statement?

Many, many thanks.

I think "size" is fine. Should be understood by most people.

Eva wrote:Size ? Volume ? What is the word?


Wording so far: "Magazine X has just the right size". But it's not about the actual "size" (how many pages, A4 or A5 etc). The question is referring to the amount of information contained in one issue of the magazine.

How would one ask, or rather, what's the appropriate statement?

Many, many thanks.

I'd opt for the words "level of content" tbh.

Many thanks Mark. But "should be understood" is not enough. They (our customers) want to have it said/written in a beautiful, correct mother-tongue-ish way. How would you put it? Forget my wording, it's just the content that counts. If you's put it in exactly that wording though, that's a different matter, then I'll leave it as it is.

Besides: Would you agree that "volume" instead of "size" is wrong?

yeah, that won't read well. 'level of content' or 'amount of content' work, and that's all my brain can come up with.

Many thanks to all of you.

If it needs to be phrased in the form of a question, I would be inclined to go with something like "Do you find that Magazine X has the right content and balance between articles, news, fashion tips, knitting patterns, and cat-care?"
That way you can ask the subsidiary question, "If so/not, why/not?" and get qualitative feedback from the readers.

EvilBastard wrote:If it needs to be phrased in the form of a question, I would be inclined to go with something like "Do you find that Magazine X has the right content and balance between articles, news, fashion tips, knitting patterns, and cat-care?"
That way you can ask the subsidiary question, "If so/not, why/not?" and get qualitative feedback from the readers.

good point.

its all about getting qualitive feedback... quantative stuff is a bit meaningless really, and can be made up for headlines

How about 'How do you regard the magazine in terms of layout, style and content?'

abridged wrote:How about 'How do you regard the magazine in terms of layout, style and content?'

Nice - get them to score layout, style, and content, out of 10, or a 5-point Satisfaction scale, and then ask why they rated them like that. You need the follow-up to understand the reader's value system.

Many thanks for all your suggestions. It is phrased as a statement you can disagree/agree to on a 6 point scale. And the open question for qualitative feedback is already in there, but somewhere else, as well as a statement regarding layout. Hey, we are independent market researchers, we honestly try to avoid biased or "made up" results. Which is one of the reasons why translating the German wording into a precise and genuine sounding wording of any foreign language is such hard and tricky work.

However, you have really helped me out - I was wondering who to ask, and I thought HL would be the safest bet and the quickest to generate the desired quality of answers.

Eva wrote:Many thanks for all your suggestions.

Fragebogen im Styl des Kleinen Arschlochs...

1. Was halten Sie von der Inhalt des Magazins?
A. Hundert prozent beschissen
B. Ein Bissel beschissen
C. Fickchinesisch!
D. Etwa' unbeschissen
E. Gar ka'Scheiß
F. Pimperanto!

Und warum sagen Sie [Antwort im Frage 1]?

In your original query you used the phrase
"amount of information". If that's the info you want to get then that's the wording you should go with. Ask 'em what you want to know and don't make things harder for yourself than they need to be.

Incidentally, "volume" would definitely be the wrong word to use as it refers to a set of magazines published over the course of a year and could cause confusion.

My thoughts if it's not too late...

If it's purely the amount of content in the magazine you need to ask about, maybe:

How do you feel about the amount of content in the magazine?

1. Far too little
2. Too little
3. Just right
4. Too much
5. Far too much

I'm not sure how that fits in with a 6-point scale though, unless there's an 'unsure' or 'no opinion' option. The use of 'size' might also confuse as it could refer to the magazine's physical measurements or file size.

EvilBastard wrote:

Eva wrote:Many thanks for all your suggestions.

Fragebogen im Styl des Kleinen Arschlochs...

1. Was halten Sie von der Inhalt des Magazins?
A. Hundert prozent beschissen
B. Ein Bissel beschissen
C. Fickchinesisch!
D. Etwa' unbeschissen
E. Gar ka'Scheiß
F. Pimperanto!

Und warum sagen Sie [Antwort im Frage 1]?

One may substitute Option A with:
A. Moppelkotze

Andrew S wrote:My thoughts if it's not too late...

If it's purely the amount of content in the magazine you need to ask about, maybe:

How do you feel about the amount of content in the magazine?

1. Far too little
2. Too little
3. Just right
4. Too much
5. Far too much

I'm not sure how that fits in with a 6-point scale though, unless there's an 'unsure' or 'no opinion' option. The use of 'size' might also confuse as it could refer to the magazine's physical measurements or file size.

agreed, should be an odd number to ensure an equal distribution across the curve- 3 or 5 scale is the norm. not filling in any box is an indication of 'unsure' or no 'opinion'

paint it black wrote:not filling in any box is an indication of 'unsure' or no 'opinion'

often, but not always...

why not add a "no opinion" option just to make sure?

LouLou wrote:

paint it black wrote:not filling in any box is an indication of 'unsure' or no 'opinion'

often, but not always...

why not add a "no opinion" option just to make sure?

But an opinion is exactly what they're soliciting. Giving a 'no opinion' option is like allowing the respondents to refuse to answer the question - in which case, what's the point of the question?

I've lately seen 'neutral' used frequently as the centre point in positive-to-negative spectra, which at least puts it on the scale somewhere. One might argue that it's the same as 'no opinion', but I think there is a subtle but real distinction.

7anthea7 wrote:

LouLou wrote:

paint it black wrote:not filling in any box is an indication of 'unsure' or no 'opinion'

often, but not always...

why not add a "no opinion" option just to make sure?

But an opinion is exactly what they're soliciting. Giving a 'no opinion' option is like allowing the respondents to refuse to answer the question - in which case, what's the point of the question?

i completely agree with you that having a "no opinion" option allows people not to respond. but i don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. if the option wasn't available the researcher would have no way of telling what percentage of people who went for an option did that because they felt it reflected their opinion or because they simply had to give an answer (the problem being more severe for the middle option, most of the time anyway).

by letting people not answer a question, you would be reducing the magnitude of the bias, if not eliminate it completely. in many cases researchers can treat the percentage of "no opinion"s as information in its own right, or a special case of missing data (not attributable to people simply missing the question etc.) if they need to run a statistical analysis of some sort

I'll buy that. I'm still not entirely convinced 'neutral' isn't a better option, though...