NikonUSA is out surveying customers again. This time about lenses. Their last US survey about cameras was so unwieldy, long, and problem filled that I'll bet they had a very low percentage of actual completed surveys. I personally wasn't able to complete it due to errors in the survey logic.
Unfortunately, things have barely changed for the better in this new survey. At least the current survey doesn't crash on me like the last one did. But it's still bad. Really bad. Bad enough that it's highly likely that the results aren't meaningful or usable. Bad enough that my In Box started showing complaints about the survey within minutes of it deploying.
How bad is it?
The survey tries to do too much, and succeeds at little. Nikon seems to have listed every lens currently sold (not just by Nikon, but by third parties, as well), and then wants to know lots of information about everything associated with those lenses. Actually, it even wants to know information about things that don't exist. For example, depending upon your lens choices, it can ask VR questions about non-VR lenses ;~). Or better still, the survey wants to know if I compared the 12-24mm f/4 DX to the 500mm f/4 when I bought the wide angle zoom. Yes, I did, and I bought the 12-24mm because it was smaller ;~). Oh, wait, they only wanted to know if I compared the two, they didn't really ask why I bought A over B, C, D...ZZ.
Or how about this: "With which lens do you use the teleconverter the most?" This question will supply a list of answers based upon all the lenses you indicated previously that you owned, whether they can be used with a teleconverter or not. For someone like me, who has a lot of lenses, that produced a damned long list, most of which are lenses that can't be used with a teleconverter. Worse still, the way the question is worded doesn't actually capture my teleconverter usage properly. I own three lenses I use the TCs on with regularity, and whether I use a TC is dependent upon which camera I have with which lens and what the situation is in front of me. TC use for me is not lens dependent, it's situation dependent. What we see in the wording of the questions is that Nikon doesn't actually see the way users use the product. Given the possible answers, Nikon won't see how we use the product any better even after we answer factually.
This survey apparently got triggered by my registering my 12-24mm f/4 DX lens. The survey is a "one-size fits all" type that tries to fit all possible lenses into the same shoe box. For example, for this DX lens I was asked whether I bought it because "I wanted to have an FX-format compatible lens" or if "I wanted it on a Nikon 1 with the mount adapter." Unfortunately, by taking this all-in-one approach, the survey ends up with questions that scroll off my 30" display (and the survey itself pops up with a window that fills the display). I'll bet the abandonment rate on this survey is nearly as high as the camera one. In fact, I'll bet the abandonment rate can be predicted by the display size the respondent viewed it on.
And what the heck is an Ai AF lens?
As inclusive as the survey tries to be of everything, it still misses critical information. For instance, the why did you get this lens question leaves out some critical possibilities (including "I read a review on bythom" ;~). You can only select "It came as a kit when purchased," "my friend recommended it", "I took advantage of a sale or rebate", "A used lens was on sale in a good condition", "collecting lenses is my hobby" (!), "I wanted to improve my photo technique". Conspicuously missing are things like "my dealer convinced me that I needed it" or "I read really good reviews/analysis/test of the lens", or even "I needed a lens of that specification."
Then there are the head scratching questions. For example, which of the following do you agree with: "A: Even if the lens is larger or heavier, I would like the maximum aperture to be fast" or "B: Even if the maximum aperture becomes fast I would still like the lens to be small and light"? This strange question implies that a lens can always be both fast and small. Okay, then why exactly would we want larger and heavier?
Some of Nikon's questions are just amusing in context. For example: how important is it that a camera "Has good after-sales/warranty"? Well, if it's a D800, really important as it turns out. But what the heck is "after sales"? Ah yes, the old Japlish problem has re-raised its head, as in how important is the "bigness of filter attachment size"? (Hint to Nikon: it isn't the overall filter size that's important to users, it's the fact that you're making lenses with six different filter sizes that's important. But you didn't ask that question.)
The survey also seems to not like experts. If you answer all the questions about what photography terms you could explain to others positively, the survey will gripe about that in language that is a bit dismissive. Some of us are experts, Nikon. Moreover, the terms you presented can be explained by a large percentage of the serious photographic population (I wonder if the survey writer could have explained them? ;~).
One of the problems with surveys is that they only tell you the information you ask for. Nikon asks for far too much information (and information not exactly related to the lens in question, it's usage, or why it was bought), which means it'll get a high abandonment rate. It asks for wrong information. It doesn't ask for information that suggests that they know how/why we're buying lenses.
Having gone through the thesis process and getting my own surveys vetted by experts, I can pretty much guarantee you that no doctoral committee would ever accept Nikon's recent surveys. It would be back to the drawing board in almost every regard.
The fear, of course, is that Nikon actually uses this survey data to make or validate decisions. I'll bet that whoever wrote this survey doesn't actually use lenses. It's reflected both in the types of questions and the way they're asked. Garbage In, Garbage Out. Nikon is getting Garbage In via this survey, let's hope we don't get Garbage Out in future lens choices.