In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design was folded into Illinois Tech's School of Design & Society.
This website is an archive of the impactful and inspirational work produced by the ID community before that transition.

László Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, treating design as a discipline that was teachable, testable, and consequential. Nine decades on, its scope had widened from the things people use to the systems they depend on: hospitals, government agencies, classrooms, supply chains, digital platforms. Along the way, ID community members developed the published research, methods, and frameworks that designers rely on every day.

Chief among them is human-centered design: close attention to how people actually live, and advocacy for what that research reveals. It shaped designers who are comfortable with complexity and ambiguity: curious, rigorous, inclusive, and stubbornly optimistic about design's ability to change the systems that shape our lives.

To every one of them, who taught, studied, built, critiqued, and stayed late in the studio: thank you, and keep designing.

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Survey Methods

Survey Methods

Introduction to the basic components and considerations of survey design.

Objective & Outcomes

This course will cover the essential components of survey design, including data collection modes, sampling, coverage errors, nonresponse, interviewer effects, questionnaire design, and ethics related to survey research. Students will also gain practical and hands-on experiences to further understand the practical aspects of the survey design process. 

The primary goal of this course is to comprehend and apply the basic components of survey design, with an emphasis on understanding the decisions and corresponding tradeoffs with respect to the design of survey questions and the quality of the data obtained. 

Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

  1. Understand how survey methods fit in the user research cycle as a research toolkit. 
  2. Identify various data collection modes and sampling designs
  3. Recognize and distinguish between various error sources in survey process and data
  4. Develop and evaluate survey questions
  5. Evaluate the implications of design decisions and implementation for data quality.

Typical Schedule

  • Session 1: Introduction to Survey Methodology
  • Session 2: Planning & Designing Survey
  • Session 3: Designing & Evaluating Survey Questions
  • Session 4: From Designing Questions to Processing & Analyzing Data
  • Session 5: Social Media, Big Data & Survey Methods
  • Session 6: Presentation & Wrap Up

See all MDes Courses