Google had a problem with its original 7 Google Consumer Surveys question types: any time a DIY researcher wanted to show an image to respondents, the image was too small to be seen. We wrote about this here and here.

Google attempted to remedy the problem by introducing a new question type, with bigger images. But although Google’s heart was in the right place, DIY researchers still do not know how to take advantage of this new larger picture size. Case in point is the following piece of marketing research from the magazine The Economist.

We find the use of the available space horrible, and all three pricing plans illegible. Plus, because this project was likely put together by some intern using cut-and-paste, the effort is needlessly confusing since the radio button was left next to the word “print subscription,” which radio button is not clickable in this re-paste.

Worse, inexcusable really, is that The Economist owns the opinion research company YouGov, and the two corporate brothers are already in a research collaboration together. The Economist could have conducted a real piece of meaningful opinion research conducted for free, just by moving some money from its left corporate pocket to its right corporate pocket. (Note to Economist: the phone number to reach your colleagues at YouGov is 650-462-8000.)

The Economist sells 1.5 million magazines a week. Google Consumer Surveys is no way for a prestigious publication of this size to conduct pricing research. Wrong audience. Bad concept. Lousy execution.

To see all that we have written about Google Consumer Surveys, type “google” into the search box at the type right corner of this page.