An In-Depth Guide on User Experience Survey with Insights on the Best UX Survey Questions

TL;DR

• User experience surveys are instrumental in understanding user’s thoughts, experiences, and feelings about your product. 
• Use the survey results to improve user experience, reduce customer churn, and identify pain points. 
• UX surveys are of five types;
  • CES
  • CSAT
  • NPS
  • Quantitative
  • Qualitative
• Launch your survey at key points in the user journey like new features, launches, cart abandonment, etc. 
• Ensure that you are asking unbiased and concise questions. 

What are User Experience Surveys?

User experience surveys gather insights on your target audience’s

• Feelings
• Expectations
• Thoughts
• Sentiments
• Behavior

Related to the UX design, product, or service usability. A UX survey is part of a comprehensive research and analysis process focusing on user interaction and finding ways to improve it. 

88% of customers won’t return to using a digital product after a bad UX experience. The task here is to ask a series of relevant questions with the motive to understand the user's perceptions. The researchers use the survey results to improve interface design add relevant features.

There are five major types of UX research surveys;

Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES surveys measure the ease of using a product or service by asking customers to rate their experience in terms of “very difficult” to “very easy.”

The level of effort a customer has to expend on using a product also determines their stage of loyalty, which is inversely proportional. 

This UX survey is often used after;

• Customer support interaction
• Purchasing a product or service
• During the usability testing stage

The results are analyzed to find actionable data for targeted product enhancements and eliminate the source of frustrations. CES are added with questions to help the users relive the experience they had while using the product. 

Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSAT)

CSAT is a feedback survey represented in the form of multiple questions used to identify the satisfaction level of the end users. This satisfaction is traced to using the company’s product or service

Using the results, companies can identify opportunities for improvements. CSAT surveys can take different forms:

• Transactional Surveys
  • Post-Purchase 
  • Post-Service

• Relationship Surveys
  • Customer loyalty surveys
  • Customer effort surveys

• Targeted Surveys
  • Product feedback survey
  • Channel satisfaction surveys

In the context of user experience understanding, the targeted transactional and relationship surveys are used more often. The results obtained from this survey can be used to remove usage bottlenecks and develop new ideas. 

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

An NPS checks and measures customer loyalty and satisfaction levels by asking questions related to sharing their experience with others. In other words, it checks the likelihood of a customer sharing the product or service. 

Generally, the NPS has two types of questions;

• Related to the likelihood of recommending the product to others
• Related to the reason behind recommending or not recommending the product. 

In both cases, the NPS becomes the benchmark to measure a company’s performance in front of their user base. Companies also like to compare their scores with those of their competitors to discover areas for improvement. 

Quantitative Research

As the name suggests, quantitative research seeks to quantify user behavior, preferences, and attitudes. The research survey helps collect data through close-ended questions, which are analyzed to detect patterns, trends, and insights. 

The questions are framed to know what sort of UX changes are required to increase customer experience, onboarding and satisfaction. Quantitative user research surveys help validate or disapprove assumptions and test hypotheses while authenticating ways to measure design changes or user behavior. 

Qualitative Research

Qualitative user research evaluates subjective experiences, behaviors, and perceptions. The data is analyzed to determine the motivations and feelings behind a user’s action or thought process related to the product. 

Successfully evaluating qualitative experiences helps identify patterns and themes but with a specific motive of understanding complex and ambiguous issues. To find out the required answers, UX experts often ask open-ended questions, conduct interviews, and use focus groups to identify in-depth trends. 

What are some of the Most Common Goals of UX surveys?

User experience surveys are conducted for a wide range of purposes, but their end goals can be summarized into four core points;

1. Identify Pain Points: Identify user’s frustrations and areas for improvement within your product or service. Knowing them will help you build a better product. 

2. Measure User Satisfaction: Gauge your user’s sentiments and perceptions to know their satisfaction levels. Find out about areas that have fallen short and areas where your product has excellent feedback. 

3. Assess the Design Changes: Test the impact of new features, design changes, etc., on your target audience. Use the insights to make relevant changes to the design, leading to a better overall experience. 

4. Guide Future Product Development: Inform the design and development team on how to integrate changes relative to the target audience and build a user-centric product roadmap. 

What’s the Right Time to Conduct UX Surveys?

A UX research survey is a powerful tool to obtain customer feedback and evaluate customer satisfaction. However, their effectiveness depends on the time of deployment and the type of questions asked. 

I’ll touch upon the questions part later on. In this section, let’s know the specific triggers and moments you can deploy a UX survey;

At the Time of the New Feature Rollout

Consider the moment you have launched a new feature or function as the trigger without letting the excitement of the new feature cloud your judgment. Your users will be the real judge of the new feature and use this survey while the new feature usage is fresh in their minds. 

Using one of the survey best practices, set up the right type of questions to identify initial hurdles and areas of confusion. A few questions to ask here are;

• Did you find the new feature easy to use?
• On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied are you with the new feature’s functionality?
• Suggest the improvements you would like us to make in the new feature to make it more user-friendly?

When you have Redesigned the Application or Website

Did you just give a new look to your digital solution and the entire design team is elated with the result? To test whether their efforts have yielded results, a user survey will be conducted to evaluate the new design’s usability. 

A good approach would be to ask users about their experiences before the complete launch.

Some sample questions to ask for knowing how to improve user experience include;

• Was it easy to find or locate the information you’re looking for on the new website design?
• Can you rate the new design’s intuitiveness on a scale of 0-5?
• Comparing the new and older designs, which one is better? Kindly explain. 

Frictions or Frustrations Detected in the Purchase Funnel

Often, businesses find themselves at a junction where users drop off or bounce off without completing the desired process. Use the UX experience survey to understand what’s preventing them from converting or taking the required action.

The survey methods you use here will help identify the purchase funnel pain points and help you make effective UX changes. Questions to ask users at this juncture include;

• What’s preventing you from completing the purchase process? 
• We would like to see you back; how likely are you to return to our website and make the purchase?
• Do you want us to add a new feature or functionality to complete the purchase process in the future?

When do you want to Set User Expectations or Experience Benchmarks?

User experience surveys also turn out to be an essential tool to check and see how users perceive your product. This type of survey deployment is often used after you have analyzed a competitor's products or strengths. 

Use this survey to identify user sentiment and user insights, focusing on competitor strengths and weaknesses while making changes in your product development process. 

• Have you ever used (competitor product name)?
• While using (competitor’s product), what feature or function did you find more appealing?
• Can you compare and share your experiences regarding our and the competitor’s products?

Taking the help of a professional survey expert will enable you to get a better understanding on how to harness the results to build a better product. While working on Qwary, we were able to identify some phenomenal aspects of our product, which didn’t cross our mind during the development stage. 

Focusing on measuring the overall user experience, the UX survey is just one piece of the puzzle. Use them with other UX research methods to gain a well-rounded understanding of the end-user’s requirements. 

Phase-Wise Implementation of the UX Survey

In addition to understanding the specific triggers for a UX survey, here’s a phase-wise implementation process of the same. 

1. Discovery Phase

Unearth user needs with the goal of identifying the end-user's core pain points while asking relevant questions. However, asking UX research questions is not enough; combine them with;

• Stakeholder and user interviews
• User audits
• Competitive analysis

For the implementation part, develop a research plan, select the right type of questions to ask, and use the survey’s purpose to frame the discovery process. Here’s what I mean by this

To understand users’ frustrations with the checkout process on the mobile application, first identify the target audience. In this case, these are the users who have abandoned their cart in the past few weeks. Identify the research goal to help the development team discover the reasons for abandoning the checkout process and what factors contribute to the bounce-off. 

2. Explore Phase

In the exploratory phase, set clear and concise survey questions that effectively address your research objectives. Use different formats like;

• Multiple choice questions
• Likert Scale
• Open-ended and close-ended

Pre-testing the questions you have set with a small group of users will help remove all ambiguity. 

Let’s say you need to know your end-user’s sentiments and perception towards a new feature you have launched. Create questions relevant to the goal and, using required evaluation criteria, determine the sentiment to make changes according to achieve the end-goal quickly. 

3. Test Phase

Here comes the phase where you must launch your survey among the target audience with the hope to receive the maximum number of responses. The valuable feedback you will receive in this phase will help build the action plan for future development. 

In this phase, take care of;

• Selecting the appropriate distribution channel relative to your target audience. 
• Incentivize your users for taking the survey. 
• Track the survey response rate to make changes for a higher participation percentage. 

When targeting your users for mobile app surveys to know the reasons behind abandoning the cart, use a pop-up survey at the exact moment they decide to leave. Offer a discount code or additional reward to make them complete the purchase. 

4. Listen Phase

After asking leading questions to your users, this phase represents taking the results for an in-depth analysis. Find actionable insights to make user-centric improvements using;

• Data analysis to discover recurring themes and identify patterns and trends. 
• Create an action plan based on the survey findings while prioritizing impact and feasibility. 

Some of the Best UX Survey Best Practices

For a better product, using surveys and analysis is pivotal to evaluating user experience and knowing more about your target audience. However, not all surveys will bear the same results, especially when you are designing a survey without following these best practices. 

1. Don’t include Biased and Misleading Questions

Check that you are avoiding all sorts of bias, including;

1. Confirmation bias: Ask questions that will only authenticate your beliefs and perceptions. 
2. Leading Questions: These questions are framed to get a specific response from the users without giving them choices to express their perceptions. 

Focusing on the neutrality of wording, avoid asking influential questions to steer the results in your favor. 

2. Keep it Quick and Relevant

Especially with the pop-up, in-app, and website surveys, keep them short and relevant. You must start by asking a few close-ended questions for quantitative data and then follow up with open-ended questions, if required. 

• Take assistance from a professional survey expert like Qwary to build concise surveys. 
• The survey length is negatively correlated with its completion rates, which means shorter surveys have a higher completion rate. 

Use the estimated time system to convince your users to take the survey. 

3. Share surveys only to relevant users

You cannot ask for an end-user’s opinion when they have not used the product or feature. Hence, focus on asking questions to the relevant audience, and it will collect everything you need to make a thorough plan for future developments. 

Trigger surveys based on;

• Their current position in the customer engagement funnel
• Existing user’s product experience

According to User Testing, target users who can share their honest opinions and valuable insights based on their experience. 

4. Make your Survey Accessible

There’s no point in creating a survey if it cannot reach the target audience. Even if you have created the best user experience survey, inaccessible surveys leave out a significant portion of the potential user base. 

Select your target audience after due consideration of their preferred communication channels. Use multiple channels to send your survey and gain effective feedback. However, don’t force surveys on your users; instead, give them the “Opt-Out” option. 

5. Maintain Results Privacy

As users are genuinely concerned about their data privacy, protecting their identity and revealing details can increase the survey response rates. For this, check out the GDPR guidelines along with the privacy rules applicable to your industry and region. 

You must;

• Clearly state the data privacy policy and concerns in the survey.
• Make survey responses anonymous. 
• Focus on collecting data that is essential for your research objectives. 

How to Create and Conduct a UX Survey for a Better Product Experience?

1. Define Feedback Survey Objectives

What do you wish to learn from your end-users? Clearly define the end goal or the specific information you need to collect for making future decisions.

• Outline the UX issues
• Determine the specific areas you need to focus upon
• Find the key queries you need your end-users to address

2. Identify your Target Audience for User Research

Ask yourself who’ll answer the questions I have to get valuable insights. To get the right information, identify the target audience using pre-defined criteria. Use your UX survey goal to identify the target audience. 

• Define user personas
• Segmentize your target audience
• Use existing and past demographic data related to your product or service. 

3. Write Engaging UX Survey Questions (Use a Template)

The questions you use must be clear, relevant and concise. Don’t include misleading questions to architect the results in your favor. Instead of spending time on making the questions, ue Qwary templates. 

With 50+ templates to conduct an online survey, we can help you build relevant surveys for the entire user base. 

• Use multiple question types like MCQs, Likert Scale, subjective responses, etc. 
• Use a pilot survey test with a small controlled group for better clarity and flow estimation. 

4. Use the Right Survey Tool

Work with user-friendly and interactive survey platforms to convince your target audience in taking the survey. The platform and pattern you choose must be user-friendly. Moreover, the results and analysis tools you choose must make it easier to evaluate the responses. 

• Use survey logic, branching, and data visualization tools for a better analysis.
• Use a mobile-friendly platform for better accessibility. 

5. Analyze and Interpret the Results

Evaluate the results to draw meaningful conclusions from the data to make better design decisions and product improvements. Use relevant analysis tools and concepts for authentic results. 

• Conduct quantitative analysis with rating scales to identify trends. 
• Use open-ended questions analysis to determine common themes.
• Build an action plan based on the survey findings. 

At the end of the process, implement the feedback loop. This means acknowledge that you have received the responses from your customers. Let them know that you will do everything required to make improvements in the product and improve the overall user experience. 

Sample User Experience Survey Questions to Ask for Effective Analysis

Here are a few sample questions to ask for multiple survey types, goals, and analyses;

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your overall satisfaction with our application?
2. How frequently do you visit our app or website?
3. What motivated you to start using our online product or service?
4. Please rate the ease of use of our app or website on a scale of 1 to 5.
5. Have you encountered any difficulties or challenges while using our website? If yes, please share.
6. How likely are you to recommend [product/service] to a friend or colleague? Please rate on a scale of 0 to 10.
7. How well does our website meet your expectations? Rate on a scale of 1 to 5.
8. Are there any additional features or improvements you would like to see added to our website?

These questions cover a wide variety of user experience factors like satisfaction, usage, ease of use, etc. Answers to these questions will help you determine specific challenges your users are facing, along with insights into their expectations. 

Conclusion

Following these steps and suggestions, you can build user-centric UX surveys to discover unique trends and themes to fuel informed decision-making. Creating and implementing a UX survey is an iterative process where you will continuously gather user feedback, implement it in the development process, and make changes to refine the product. 

This cycle continues to bring actionable user insights and as you make user-centered UX changes, they will keep coming back to your solution, for more. 

If you are ready to take your UX survey analysis to the next level, Qwary provides a powerful platform to build and launch your survey. You can either create a survey from scratch or use our professional survey builder to add different questions relative to your end goal. With Qwary, you don’t need any coding experience to make a UX survey. 

‍Sign up for a free demo today and observe how Qwary can transform your user experience.

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