For some real-world examples of on-line research, I talked to researchers at three companies about some of their recent on-line projects. Two of the companies, Bay Networks and Informix, serve the computer industry. The other, Nickelodeon, provides a range of TV programming through its Nickelodeon and TV Land networks.

Bay Networks and Informix are users of SurveyBuilder.com, a service offered by Virtual Architechs, Sausalito, Calif., in which respondents are recruited to visit the SurveyBuilder.com Web site to participate in surveys.

Menlo Park, Calif.-based database technology firm Informix turned to research to obtain benchmark data for its Web site, including information on where visitors went in the site, what they liked/disliked, what information they wanted. "Prior to the research, we had no benchmarks about what people thought of our site," says Sandra Bateman, director of corporate Web marketing, Informix Software. "Because the Web is new - I always say that WWW stands for wild, wild west - there is a lot of maverick behavior, a lot of claims are being made, so trying to get actual user data is important. We’re spending all this time and money making these Web sites, but are people using them? You can measure the number of hits, but that doesn’t tell you why people are coming to your site."

In Informix’s case, a script was written so that every fourth person who visited the Informix site would be asked if they wanted to take the survey. Those who said yes were taken directly to the SurveyBuilder Web site. As an incentive, SurveyBuilder.com lets respondents select a charity to which to donate $2. "It’s a win-win," Bateman says. "We get the information and the charities benefit."

The survey was kept brief so that respondents could complete it in 10-15 minutes. "I like the fact there is a lot of flexibility in designing the questionnaires," Bateman says. "We have full control over...