For this study, we chose to begin our research with a pilot study that was conducted on April 22, 2013 on Survey Monkey, an online survey creator that allows users to make free surveys of ten questions or less. After creating the online survey, it was sent via email to two fellow classmates in our Multimedia & the World Wide Web class, Allison Paulish and Maggie Meyers. Upon reviewing the results from the pilot surveys, we realized that we needed to redesign some of our survey questions to include the right level of detail. The feedback that we received from the pilot study led us to think about the amount of freeform questions that should be included in our survey, which we are added to our final study. Our insight led us to realize we have a plethora of multiple-choice questions, but not an adequate amount of questions to showcase the respondent's opinions and attitudes about our topic. The final survey that we used for our research included a freeform question that allowed participants to speak their voice about Instagram, photo sharing, and the World Wide Web.
Our final study was distributed using the convenience sampling method. With the use of Survey Monkey we sent our survey to friends, roommates, and classmates via email and Facebook. The participants answered ten questions about their personal usage of Instagram, social media, and how they utilize their personal photos. In addition, our survey was completely anonymous. We did not keeping track of IP addresses, names, email addresses, phone numbers, or any other identifying information. Also, an additional paragraph was included before each survey, which ensured participants of their rights, privacy, and consent before taking the questionnaire.
