UX surveys are used to help create a great user experience. A good UX survey will incorporate a variety of question types to help understand what users values and why. This article will help you create the perfect UX survey.
A great UX is what reels people in and what makes them convert. However, a great user experience is not easy to achieve. It requires many attempts and failures, endless changes, and most importantly – data. Marketers need data to inform their decisions. They need surveys. After all, what better way to learn what your users need than to ask them directly?
Why is it important to ask them, you wonder? Won’t they simply come to you with their complaints?
The answer is no. On average, a business will hear from only 4% of its dissatisfied customers. This means that 96% of the customers who aren’t happy with your business will never reach out to you. Instead, they’ll talk to others.
Here’s a devastating number for you – 95% of your dissatisfied customers will tell others about their experience. So, they won’t tell you, but they won’t exactly keep quiet about it. Unless you learn what made their experience unpleasant, word of mouth will quickly become a big problem for you.
And even if they don’t talk to others, you’d lose leads you successfully targeted.
For every one customer complaining to a company, 26 others don’t directly voice their feelings. They might not spread the bad word around, but you can be rest assured that most won’t give your business another chance.
One way to get insights from your users is to ask them directly through surveys. This straightforward approach can give you insights to boost your UX. Still, surveys aren’t easy to make. They can go south quickly if you don’t know how to make them effective and engaging.
With that in mind, this guide will explore the importance of surveys and give you tips to make them great.
Why Are UX Surveys Important for Your Research?
To create a successful and productive UX, you must understand your audience. This is incredibly hard to do without getting input from that exact audience. It would help if you used surveys – to gather meaningful data that tells you what your audience thinks, needs, and feels.
A good survey can help you determine the following:
- Who your user is/ What they need
- What the user looks to purchase
- Why the user visited your site
- How the user perceives your brand
- How they feel about their experience with your business
- What the user currently owns
- How the user feels about your product
- What the user wants to be improved
This list can go on and on. The bottom line is surveys allow you to ask the targeted customer what they want before you go and deliver it to them.
Tips for Creating the Most Effective UX Survey
Surveys are simple to conduct. The results aren’t difficult to organize into insights, but not with the plethora of tools and software available. However, making the survey is not exactly an easy task. It’s very easy to mess up.
There are too many ways in which data can be skewed. You can get compromised or biased results. You can ask the wrong questions and offend the participants. You can ask the wrong questions to the wrong people.
To help you make your following UX survey effective, we’ve created a short list of excellent tips you should practice. Let’s take a look at them.
1. Work on Your UX Design Skills
To make a good UX survey, you need to know what user experience means. Good UX design skills will not only help you to create surveys but also templates for mobile app RFP. However, you won’t be able to utilize the answers if you don’t know how to implement the insights. This is why, before you start asking questions, you must learn as much as possible about UX.
To get there, use a platform that facilitates training and offers fast learning in various UX fields. Uxcel is created for this exact purpose. It’s a platform used to build professional skills in UX design.
The more you work on your UX skills, the more equipped you will be to ask the right questions. But unless you know what matters to an audience and what information you need to tailor your UX, you won’t be able to ask the right questions.
2. Segment Your Audience
If you aim to use the same survey on your entire audience, you will have vague, confusing questions that don’t fit everyone on your mailing list. In addition, people have different expectations regarding UX, so you’ll receive confusing answers and frustrated respondents. This is why you need targeted surveys – to make sure that you ask the right people the right questions.
To create targeted surveys, you first need to segment your audience. Once you have your audiences, you can create a targeted survey to improve their user experience.
3. Set Your Objectives First
Running a survey is an easy way to obtain user data. But you can’t collect the data you need before you know what you need. So now that you have your segments, you need to figure out what to ask them.
Do you want to learn how your audience likes your product design? Do you want to see if they had a good experience on your website? Do you want to see how your support works?
One of the best practices for doing surveys is to start by setting an objective.
Before drafting any questions, decide on what you want to find out. Be specific, and don’t overdo it with the questions. This will overwhelm the respondents, and you won’t be able to ask all the questions you need to ask if you tackle endless topics.
4. Decide on the Type of Questions You’ll Ask
There are many question categories for surveys. But we can differentiate between 2 main types: open and closed. Here is what you should know about them:
- Open questions leave the respondent space to respond however they want. They can answer with yes or no, write complete sentences, or even go essay-style.
- Closed questions give respondents a limited number of options to choose from. These can come in the form of yes or no questions, multiple choice questions, Likert scale questions, and checkboxes.
Keep in mind research questions like MaxDiff as well. This question type will help identify the features that users value the most using a statistical model.
So, how do you choose which type of question to ask – and when?
Open questions offer more qualitative data. For example, they’ll give you more details about what users think about a product or a problem with your UX. In some cases, you might want to offer respondents a chance to give an open response in addition to answering a closed question.
Closed questions give more quantitative data, but that doesn’t always have to be true. These are easier to analyze because you don’t have to read through the answers manually. You can even use software to gather the results in a ready report.
Since closed questions are easier to answer, they have higher response rates. But open questions provide you with more detailed data.
There’s no reason why you can’t use both in your survey. To get detailed information and still not overwhelm the respondents, try and mix the two types. Use only open questions for data that requires more input from your respondents.
5. Keep It Simple
Respondents are already giving some time to help you improve your UX. If you use messy, complex language in your surveys, this will frustrate them. Here are some tips for keeping your survey questions simple:
- Stay away from advanced concepts, abbreviations, jargon, and long sentences.
- Keep it to the point. If you have to use complicated vocabulary, include an explanation. Only do this if you feel like your question needs additional explanation.
- Don’t ask double-barreled questions. This is when you ask two things in a single question, such as ‘Would you like to buy X and Y?’ The customer might not have the same answer to both, and if it’s a closed question, it’s impossible to answer.
- Avoid bias. Always make sure that your scale is balanced toward both positive and negative. You promote bias by inserting three positive options and just one negative in a closed question.
- Don’t ask leading questions. If your question nudges the respondent even slightly toward an answer, it’s a no for your survey. Don’t ask questions like ‘How helpful is our product’?
6. Learn to Use the Option ‘Other’
Some questions can only have a yes or no answer. But what if the respondent isn’t sure or doesn’t know the answer? It would help if you gave them these options, too. Or, at least, add an option ‘other’ and allow the respondent to say what’s on their mind.
‘Other’ is the safe option when you aren’t sure what your respondents might say. Make sure to add it wherever applicable.
Not Satisfied With Your Surveys? Use These Tips to Improve Them!
Remember, your surveys are only as good as the questions you ask in them! Remember to keep them short and to the point, and research your target audience before you ask them questions. And, of course, incentives can always help if you struggle to find more respondents for your UX surveys. Good luck!
ABOUT THE AUTOR
Nadica Metuleva is a senior freelance writer with 8+ years of experience in producing original, high-quality content for clients. She has a Master’s degree in English Literature and Teaching and speaks 4 languages. Nadica has a passion for storytelling and a deep understanding of SEO principles. You can find her samples and more details about her work on LinkedIn.
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