My pany creates web surveys and once in a while I get asked if we can do an exit survey on a website. So when a visitor is about to leave the site a "popup" appears asking if they'd take a quick survey. By "popup" I'm referring to a floating CSS div, not a child window (although sometimes clients don't realise this).

Is it technically possible to code a genuine exit survey?

I don't think so but am I missing something? The onbeforeunload event is close to the functionality required but the message and buttons aren't fully customiseable to make it usable.

The current trend for implementing an exit survey is to popup an invite at the start of the visit, and if the user says ok then a child window is opened and focus set back to the main window. At the end of the visit the users sees the child window. I swear I've never seen a "popup on exit" survey (unless by coincidence).

My pany creates web surveys and once in a while I get asked if we can do an exit survey on a website. So when a visitor is about to leave the site a "popup" appears asking if they'd take a quick survey. By "popup" I'm referring to a floating CSS div, not a child window (although sometimes clients don't realise this).

Is it technically possible to code a genuine exit survey?

I don't think so but am I missing something? The onbeforeunload event is close to the functionality required but the message and buttons aren't fully customiseable to make it usable.

The current trend for implementing an exit survey is to popup an invite at the start of the visit, and if the user says ok then a child window is opened and focus set back to the main window. At the end of the visit the users sees the child window. I swear I've never seen a "popup on exit" survey (unless by coincidence).

• javascript
• html
• ajax

• I know popups are unfriendly. In most cases if someone is exiting the site they're unlikely to stop to take a survey anyway. I imagine the response rate would be really low for exit surveys done in this way and there are other problems that a client has to consider too (in social research terms). When we talk to a client we discuss these issues and remend studying the site analytics first. Ultimately, I'm hoping to be able to simply rule out the "popup on exit" survey as not technically possible so we can discuss other/better approaches to their research objective. – Dan Commented Jun 3, 2009 at 19:47

4 Answers 4

Surely they 'exit' the site by closing the window/tab? You're asking for a way to prevent them closing the tab? Or popup a window triggered by the close action? That sounds like it would be prevented by the browser for good reason, and if you found a workaround it would be likely to be fixed in future versions.

var exitmessage = 'Please dont go!'; //custome message
DisplayExit = function() {
    return exitmessage;
};
window.onbeforeunload = DisplayExit;

There is a JavaScript onunload event that you might be able to utilize.

Unbelievable that even in 2009 people want to create crap sites.

AdBlock Plus in my FF stops all popups. If I use another browser I usually close the window before it get to load its content.