Abstract:

The pop-up survey has been one of the most positive contributions to web site research in the brief history of Internet research. The technique became widely used after the pioneering work of Micael Dahlen (1998) on the Swedish web site Passagen. So what is a pop-up survey and what are its benefits? A pop-up survey is a web-based questionnaire that appears in a new browser window as a person uses a web site. The survey itself is invoked by placing some JavaScript code in the web page. The same type of scripting is regularly seen on the web now to display in to interstitial adverts or to provide users of web sites with the additional information (e.g. pop-up help screens or search boxes). It has become popular for two main reasons. Firstly it is a proper sampling method (unlike self-selecting feedback boxes on web sites) and secondly because of the good response rates that can be obtained.