summarySurvey design involves planning and documenting questionnaires, sample selection and survey operations. It constitutes a simultaneous solution to numerous interrelated conceptual and practical design issues, more than may usually be settled effectively, or even recognised, in any reasonable time by contemplation alone. The alternative is an iterative approach, making a trial plan, testing and then improving it, and, if necessary, repeating it until a satisfactory plan is evolved. Pilot testing can then become the focus of design decisions by providing relevant data and operating experience, and by using experimental methods, as a basis for adroit revision of trial survey plans. This paper concerns the planning of efficient survey design processes along these lines.