Creating a website that people will enjoy is your company’s first step to achieving a robust online presence. That’s where user experience survey questions come in. By asking the right questions, you can gain valuable insights into your target audience’s preferences. You’ll better understand what your users are looking for, what they like and dislike, their common pain points, and how to improve their experience on your website.
In this article, our digital marketing agency will explore some user experience survey questions you can use to create websites that satisfy your target market and various customer segments. You’ll learn various types of UX survey questions, how to conduct a good survey, and get a clear picture of the data analytics process behind powerful UX designs. So let’s dive in!
Table of Contents:
- What Are User Experience Surveys?
- Different Types of User Experience Survey Questions You Should Know About
- 6 Best Practices To Get The Most out of Your User Experience Questionnaires
- 15 Mind-Blowing User Experience Survey Questions That Will Help You Create More Enjoyable Designs
- How many questions should your UX survey have?
- How many respondents do you need for a UX survey?
- Final Thoughts
What Are User Experience Surveys?
UX researchers get customer feedback about their experience on a website or an app and then squeeze valuable insights designers can use. By conducting UX surveys, you can learn how users interact with a website, what they like, what they don’t like, and what can be improved. According to UX statistics, every dollar invested in UX returns $100. This means you shouldn’t take user research surveys for granted, as they’re a great way to boost your design and generate better ROI.
The UX survey questions can range from general topics, such as the overall look and feel of the website, to specific topics, such as the ease of navigation, loading times, and functionality of the site. You should conduct these at various stages of the website creation process, from the initial design phase to post-launch evaluation.
By understanding the needs and preferences of users, UX designers can create a more user-friendly, efficient, and enjoyable website. And thanks to comprehensive research, you can increase customer lifetime value and your website’s lifespan.
There are different user experience survey types, including quantitative and qualitative surveys:
- Quantitative surveys use close-ended questions with predefined answer options
- Qualitative surveys use open-ended questions that allow users to provide more detailed feedback
Different Types of User Experience Survey Questions You Should Know About
To get the most valuable insights into users’ preferences, you need to include various types of questions in user experience questionnaires. You shouldn’t limit your questions just to one aspect of your website. If you want to get a detailed picture of the way people perceive your website, make sure to find the perfect balance between:
- Website usability survey questions
- Customer satisfaction survey questions
- User interface survey questions
- User persona survey questions
Here are four types of UX survey questions you can use to meet your research goals quickly. In this section, we’ll explain the following question types and show you how to use them to create a good survey:
- Open-ended questions
- Close-ended questions
- Nominal questions
- Rating scale questions
Open-ended UX survey questions will help you get deeper insights into the user experience
Open-ended user experience survey questions allow people to provide feedback in their own words. This usually results in detailed and specific responses, giving you a deeper understanding of user opinions, experiences, and pain points.
Open-ended questions work well because you’re not limiting the responses to a set of predefined options. You may even get answers on things that you didn’t consider before. By allowing users to provide feedback, you can identify which issues are most important to them.
Here are two examples of open-ended user experience survey questions:
- “What improvements would you suggest to make our website more user-friendly?”
- “Would you like to share anything else about your experience on our website?”
Remember that you can always ask follow-up questions once the user gives you an answer to the initial one to get deeper insights on exciting topics.
But keep in mind that open-ended questions often require more effort from users than close-ended questions, which can lead to lower response rates or less detailed responses. And although open-ended questions can provide more varied and nuanced responses, this can make them harder to analyze.
How to approach analyzing open-ended user experience survey questions?
With the right approach, you can extract valuable insights from open-ended questions and inform your UX design decisions. Here are some steps you can take to analyze open-ended user experience survey questions more precisely:
- Start by reading through all the responses: Before diving into analysis, reading through responses is crucial to get a sense of what people are saying. This will help you identify any common themes or issues that keep coming up.
- Categorize the responses: Once you’ve read through all the responses, start categorizing them into different buckets based on their content. For example, you can create categories like “ease of use,” “design,” “performance,” “customer support,” etc.
- Look for trends and patterns: Once you’ve categorized the responses, look for trends and patterns within each category. For example, if you see that many people mention issues with your website’s performance, you should investigate further to see if there’s a problem with your server or code.
- Identify key takeaways: Based on your analysis, identify the key takeaways that can inform your UX design decisions. For example, if you see many people needing help with navigation, consider simplifying the menu or adding more descriptive labels.
- Share your findings: Finally, share your findings with the rest of your team. Everyone needs to work together to improve the UX design based on the insights you’ve gathered.
Close-ended UX survey questions
With close-ended UX survey questions, you give participants a list of predefined response options. These questions typically require respondents to select from a list of options or choose one of several responses that best describes their experience.
One of the most significant advantages of asking close-ended questions in UX surveys is that they’re easy to analyze. As the response options are predefined, it’s straightforward to categorize the responses and calculate the percentages of users who gave the same answers. You’ll be able to identify patterns and trends in the data quickly.
Close ended-questions are also less prone to interpretation than open-ended questions. There’s less room for users to provide vague or unclear responses that can be difficult to analyze.
Here are some examples of close-ended user experience survey questions:
- “On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with our website?”
- “Which of the following best describes your primary use case for our website?”
- “Which of the following features do you use most frequently on our website?”
However, keep in mind that close-ended questions can also have some downsides, one of the main ones being that such questions usually limit the range of responses that participants can give. If none of the answer options match a participant’s experience or opinion, they may be forced to choose an option that doesn’t accurately reflect their thoughts. Website visitors may not get a chance to give suggestions that can improve your overall design and make it more user-friendly.
We advise combining close-ended and open-ended questions to get the most out of your user feedback questions.
Nominal UX survey questions
Nominal questions are close-ended UX survey questions that ask users to select one or more options from a predefined list. They’re a great way to collect information about users’ experiences and preferences in a structured way. And as nominal questions are easier to answer than open-ended ones, you can expect higher response rates.
Here’s an example of a nominal UX survey question:
- Which of the following features do you use most often on our website:
- a) search bar
- b) navigation menu
- c) filters
- d) other
The main disadvantage of nominal questions is that users may be unable to express their thoughts fully. Such questions don’t allow for deeper insights into user behavior or preferences. But you can overcome this by asking follow-up questions without predefined answer options.
Rating scale UX survey questions
You’ll likely use rating scale questions in all of your surveys. These questions use a numerical or visual scale to ask users to rate their experience. The basic idea behind a rating scale question is to provide participants with a range of options and ask them to choose the one that best reflects their opinion or experience. You’ll get answers that are easy to quantify and organize.
There are a few different types of rating scale questions, including:
- Likert scale: By using the Likert scale, you’ll ask respondents to rate their level of agreement with a statement, usually on a scale of 1-5. For example, “I found this product easy to use” might be rated on a scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”
- Semantic differential scale: With this scale, you’ll be asking users to rate your website on a set of opposing adjectives, like “simple” vs. “complex” or “modern” vs. “old-fashioned.”
- Numerical rating scale: This type of question asks users to rate a website or some of its features on a numeric scale, like 1-10.
Remember that the rating scale questions’ interpretation can be subjective, as different people may interpret the scale differently. So make sure not to follow the answers blindly; use them as a guide that will help you craft the perfect environment for end users.
Follow These 6 Best Practices To Get The Most out of Your User Experience Questionnaires
Before we explore some great questions for user experience surveys, let’s look at some of the best practices for crafting your own UX questionnaires. Following these survey question basics will help you get much better user insights which will help your team create a design that will improve customer satisfaction levels.
Keep Questions Short and Simple to Avoid Confusing Participants
One of the most critical goals you must set when crafting user experience survey questions is to make them entirely understandable for participants. When people understand your questions, it will be much easier for them to provide accurate and honest answers.
Think about it – have you ever taken a survey that had really long and complicated questions? You’ve probably skipped such questions without giving thoughtful responses. It can be frustrating and time-consuming to figure out what the question is asking.
Short and straightforward questions will be much easier for users to answer while still describing their customer experience more accurately. These will help you increase response rates and improve the usefulness of the feedback you receive.
Here are a few examples of short and simple website usability survey questions:
- What would you change to improve the usability of our website?
- How would you rate our website’s usability?
- How easy is it to use our website?
Ask Neutral Customer Satisfaction Survey Questions To Get Honest Answers
It’s crucial to ensure that the results you get from your customer satisfaction survey questions are accurate and unbiased. By asking neutral questions, you’re not leading the survey respondent toward any particular answer. It’s also important not to add unnecessary information or context that might influence their response.
Let’s say you’re designing a survey to get feedback on your new website. If you create a question like “We believe our website is easy to navigate. How easy to navigate do you think it is?” – you’re leading the user towards a positive response. With this approach, you might find it challenging to polish your website navigation perfectly.
It would be best to shape your questions to allow users to provide honest feedback. Following the previous example, you might want to ask website usability survey questions like “What do you think of our website’s navigation?” or “How would you rate the navigation on our website?”. This approach ensures that the data you collect is accurate and can provide valuable user insights that you can then use to improve your website.
Allow Users to Skip Questions
Not all website user experience survey questions may be relevant to every user. Some questions may only apply to specific customer segments depending on the survey’s purpose. It’s better to let people skip the question they can’t relate to than get an inaccurate answer.
For example, imagine you’re conducting a survey about a new website feature that only applies to users who have made a purchase on the site. If you force all users to answer questions from your customer satisfaction survey, you will end up with a lot of irrelevant data. By allowing users to skip questions, you’re allowing them only to answer the ones they have a meaningful response to.
Respect Participants’ Decisions To Stay Anonymous
Besides being ethically correct, respecting research survey participants’ decisions to stay anonymous will also encourage honesty. When people know their identities are kept anonymous, they’re more likely to provide honest feedback. Also, respecting anonymity will help you build trust with participants and make them more comfortable before asking user survey questions.
Don’t Ask More Than One Question at The Same Time
Asking multiple questions in one sentence or paragraph can lead to confusion and make it challenging for users to provide accurate answers. For example, imagine you’re taking a user experience research survey that asks: “Do you like the product design and how easy it is to use?” How would you answer that question if you don’t like the design but find the product easy to use? It can be very tricky to answer two questions in one go.
The main problem with asking multiple user experience survey questions at a time is that you’ll have trouble determining the exact question the survey taker is responding to. Your survey results may be misleading.
It is crucial to make it as easy as possible for people to answer your customer satisfaction survey questions. Another important notice is that asking multiple questions in one sentence can lead to cognitive overload. Once you exceed the user’s cognitive capacity, they may be unable to process all the information correctly.
Make Sure To Balance Your Rating Scales
How you structure your rating scales can affect the quality of the data you collect and ultimately impact your decisions based on that data. Balanced rating scales help eliminate response bias. For example, if you have a rating scale with only positive responses, people might be inclined to choose a higher rating even if they don’t truly feel that way. You can counteract this bias by providing a range of positive and negative responses.
Using a Likert scale is one of the best ways to balance your rating scales. Let’s see an example of a 5-point Likert scale:
- Strongly disagree
- Somewhat disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Somewhat agree
- Strongly agree
Notice how this scale has two negative responses, two neutral responses, and only one positive response. This balance helps you ensure that people are providing truthful feedback and that you’re capturing the full range of experiences.
When balancing your scales, making them easy to understand is essential. Avoid using jargon or technical language that might confuse survey takers. And avoid using overlapping or redundant options for your scales.
15 Mind-Blowing User Experience Survey Questions That Will Help You Create More Enjoyable Designs
User experience research surveys provide limitless opportunities. You can use them to learn about just any aspect of your current website’s UX design quality and use that knowledge to strengthen weak areas.
To help you get started, we’ve created a list of the fifteen best user experience survey questions our web design agency in Chicago regularly uses. Collecting answers to these questions will help you kickstart your web project and create a digital landscape people will enjoy:
“What was the first thing that came to your mind when you saw our website?”
First impressions matter, especially in the competitive digital world. The initial impression people get upon landing on your website can determine whether they keep exploring it or leave immediately. And this simple user research survey question will help you better understand whether your website conveys the desired message, is easy to navigate, and is visually appealing.
For example, you run a website that sells handmade jewelry. Your goal is to achieve a fresh, modern look. However, if someone’s first impression is that your website looks outdated, cluttered, or confusing, take that as an alert sign. Creating positive first impressions with your target audience is crucial to keep them exploring your offers.
By asking survey takers about their first impressions of your website, you can also identify any issues they may be experiencing. For example, if multiple users need clarification about navigating to a particular page, you may need to reevaluate your website’s navigation structure.
It’s a good idea to formulate this as an open-ended question and let survey takers share their first impressions freely. If you feel it’s needed, you can lead the conversation with a follow-up question asking them to rate their first impression.
“What made you choose us over our competitors?”
This is one of the best user experience survey questions for gaining insights into what’s driving users to choose your product or service over another. Asking this question can provide valuable information about what makes your website different from its competitors in the eyes of your visitors. Understanding these unique selling points can help you refine your website’s copy, improve your user experience, and position your products or services higher in the market.
Let’s say you’re an owner of an eCommerce store that sells outdoor gear, and you ask your customers what made them choose your store over your competitors. Here are some possible answers:
- “Your website was more user-friendly than others I looked at.”
- “You had better prices on the gear I was looking for.”
- “Your customer service was excellent and made me feel valued.”
These responses can help you better understand your strengths and weaknesses, so you can make necessary adjustments when creating a UX strategy.
“What do you like most about our website?”
Asking users this question can help you identify the strengths of your website, which you can then leverage to improve the overall user experience. The goal is to discover why users visit your website, what they find valuable, and what motivates them to engage with your content.
For instance, if you run an online store and users keep telling you they love clear and concise product descriptions, you can use this information to tailor your product descriptions to customers’ preferences across your website. Similarly, if users love your checkout page design, you can focus on making it even smoother to reduce cart abandonment rates.
By taking users’ feedback seriously, you can show them that you care about their opinions. Polishing your website to meet their needs is a great way to build trust and credibility and boost customer satisfaction.
“What do you least like about our website?”
This is one of the open-ended user experience survey questions that will help you identify the pain points or weaknesses of your website. Treat it as a potential goldmine of information for improving the overall user experience.
By asking this question, you’re allowing your users to voice their concerns, frustrations, or complaints about your website’s look and feel. You might get valuable insights into the areas that need improvement. This could be anything, so keep the range of potential answers open by avoiding a nominal scale for this question. Let users speak about their issues, whether related to navigation, page speed, or graphic design.
However, asking this question might only be helpful if you keep both of your ears open for complaints. For example, if users mention that they find it challenging to find the information they need, you should work on improving the navigation. And if they complain about slow page load times, you can optimize images and reduce the file sizes to speed up the website.
“Which of our website’s features do you find most helpful?”
You probably already have some favorite features on your website. But it’s crucial to check if your users focus on other features you need to pay more attention to. Asking survey takers about the website features they find most helpful will help you reevaluate the quality of your design and highlight the features people enjoy.
Let’s check some of the potential responses people may give you when you ask them about the website features they find most helpful:
- “The search bar is beneficial because it helps me quickly find the content I’m looking for.”
- ” Your user-friendly checkout process is beneficial and allows me to order products without hassle.”
- ” I find detailed product descriptions very helpful, as these allow me to get answers to all of my questions without having to leave the website.”
Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to improve these features to make your website even more user-friendly, which can lead to increased sales and customer loyalty. And once you get initial responses, feel free to use follow-up questions to learn more about specific user requirements for a website design your visitors might have.
“Which of our website’s features do you find least helpful?”
Identifying features your website visitors don’t find particularly helpful is even more important than finding those they enjoy. While it’s always nice to hear compliments, understanding user pain points and areas of frustration is crucial to creating an enjoyable UX design. One way is to conduct comprehensive website usability testing; the other is to utilize customer satisfaction survey questions to learn about their frustrations.
By asking the right user experience survey questions, you may find out that a particular feature is confusing or difficult to use or doesn’t provide the information users seek. You can then fix these issues to improve customer satisfaction.
Remember that it’s best to target people who have used your website for quite some time with this question. You can let fresh website visitors skip this question, especially if they’re unsure which feature they find least helpful.
“Is there any feature you’d like to see on our new website?”
The most significant benefit of asking this question is that it allows you to identify any gaps or pain points in the user experience you may have overlooked. As a website owner or designer, you may know what features or functionalities are essential for your users. However, there are likely certain aspects that you’ve missed or undervalued. If your competitors have features that users enjoy and your website doesn’t, you risk falling behind in the market.
Let’s say, for example, that you run an eCommerce website that sells clothing. You may think offering free shipping is the most critical feature for your users. But by asking the right user experience survey questions, you might discover that users want a more robust search functionality to help them find the exact product they’re looking for. Remember never to assume your customer’s preferences – check them.
“How easy was it to differentiate links from the other content?”
In today’s digital age, links are integral to the web browsing experience. They allow users to navigate from one page to another, access external resources, or perform specific actions. However, links can sometimes be challenging to spot, especially when you don’t correctly highlight or label them.
Asking users about their ability to differentiate links from other content is essential to website usability testing. If many users find it hard to identify links, it could indicate a need for a better design or clearer labeling. For a quick fix, you may want to check ADA WordPress plugins. On the other hand, if most users find links easy to spot, it could show that your website is accessible.
Utilizing rating scales is the best option for this type of user experience survey questions.
“Did our content help you solve your problems or get answers to your questions?”
People come to your website to find helpful information. Asking this question is crucial because it helps you gauge the effectiveness of your content. Remember that your users’ needs are at the center of your design process, and the ultimate test of whether your content is valuable is whether it helps solve their problems.
If the content doesn’t address their needs or help them solve their problems, it’s not doing its job. You can n even ask follow-up questions requesting users to rate a piece of content on a scale of 1-10. The goal is to understand how website visitors perceive your content.
“Did images help you better understand the content?”
As people love visual content, incorporating images into your design can significantly enhance the user experience. It can help you convey your messages much more effectively. Think about it – when scrolling through social media, what catches your eye first?
Chances are, it’s an image or a video. Human brains process images and graphics faster than text. That’s why pairing informative images with your content is always a brilliant idea.
By asking survey takers if images helped them better understand the content, you can identify potential areas for improvement.
“How would you rate the usability of our website on mobile devices?”
Mobile devices have become increasingly popular for web browsing, and more people are using their smartphones and tablets to access websites than ever before. According to Statista, over half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. Therefore, ensuring that your website is optimized for mobile devices and that users can easily navigate and interact with it on various screen sizes is crucial.
By asking users to rate the usability of your website on mobile devices, you can identify any issues or pain points that users may be experiencing. You can also include some open-ended website usability testing questions and let people talk about their problems. For example, users may have difficulty navigating the site on their phone, or certain buttons or links are too small and hard to click.
“Were you able to find the desired page within three clicks?”
Website visitors want to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. If they have to click through multiple pages and menus to get to the content they want, it can be frustrating and cause them to leave your website. The best practice is to design navigation to allow users to access any page on your website within three clicks. Conducting website usability tests is the best way to determine if you’ve accomplished this.
For example, let’s say you run an online store that sells clothes. You have a “men’s clothing” category on your homepage, but users have to click through multiple pages to get to the specific item they’re looking for, like a black t-shirt. If several users report that they could not find the black t-shirt within three clicks, it’s a sign that you need to reorganize your website’s navigation or include relevant filters. This will help boost customer satisfaction and sell more products in your store.
“Can you rate our website speed on a scale of 1-10?”
Website speed has a significant impact on the user experience. Think about the last time you visited a website that took forever to load. How did it make you feel? Frustrated? Annoyed? You may have even given up and left the website altogether. This is a common experience for many users, which can seriously damage your online success.
Also, site speed and SEO go hand in hand, and improving the loading times of your pages may earn you some extra rankings in search engines.
Asking users to rate your site speed on a scale of 1-10 is one of the best ways to get insights into this crucial UX aspect. It will help you find weak areas, enhance the user experience and boost website performance. For example, if users consistently rate the website speed as a six or lower, consider optimizing images, reducing page size, or utilizing a content delivery network (CDN).
How many questions should your UX survey have?
The number of user experience survey questions you should ask your respondents to answer can vary depending on a few factors.
First, it’s important to remember that people generally have short attention spans, especially when filling out surveys. You want to make sure your survey is not too long or overwhelming but also not too short so that you miss gathering valuable feedback. A good rule of thumb is to craft a survey that takes at most 5-10 minutes to complete. This means you’ll want to keep your questions concise, clear, and to the point.
It’s difficult for us to give you an exact number of questions you should ask. As a general guideline, you can aim for around 10-15 questions if you believe this is enough to get a clear picture of your website’s user experiences.
This number can change based on the specific goals of your survey and the complexity of the questions you’re asking. For example, if you’re conducting a survey to improve the checkout process on your eCommerce site, you may need to ask more questions to cover all the different aspects of the checkout process. But it’s best to keep your UX surveys shorter than 30 questions.
How many respondents do you need for a UX survey?
The number of respondents you need for a UX survey depends on the type of survey you’re conducting, your target audience, and the level of precision you need.
Generally, you should have a sample size of at least 100 participants. The larger your sample size, the more reliable your results will be. Additionally, consider the margin of error and confidence level you’re comfortable with. For instance, a survey with a 5% margin of error and 95% confidence level would require a larger sample size than the one with a 10% margin of error.
But keep in mind that you can always start with a smaller sample size and gradually increase it as you gather more insights. There are also many fantastic UX research tools you can use to recruit survey participants based on various characteristics of your choice.
Final Thoughts
User experience can make the difference between the success and failure of your online presence. And there are not many better ways to get deep insight into customer satisfaction than conducting a good survey.
By following the best practices described in this article and asking the right questions, there’s nothing to worry about when preparing a UX survey. Feel free to use the user experience survey questions we gave you to start collecting valuable insights into the users’ opinions about your website.
Hopefully, this ultimate guide to user experience survey questions was helpful. If you’re hungry for more knowledge, we’re sure you’ll find some interesting topics on our blog.
And if you need help creating a high-quality UX design that people will love, we’d be glad to help. So don’t hesitate to schedule a call with Alpha Efficiency and discuss your ideas with leading experts in the UX field.
