Understanding 8 Types of User Survey Questions and When to Use Them

Binary Questions

Binary questions are simple Yes or No questions. They’re easy to ask and answer. Ask these questions when there are likely only two possible answers to a question. For example, you might have introduced a new feature to your product and want to know about its usage. You could simply ask users whether they’ve gotten to try the new feature, so possible answers to your question would be either Yes or a No. Figure 3 shows an example of a binary question.

Image source: “Yes or No Surveys: Collecting Feedback with Dichotomous Questions”

These types of questions are simple and direct, so the data you obtain from them should easy to analyze—unless you complicate questions by asking about multiple things in a single question. Never do that.

Multiple-Choice Questions

Multiple-choice questions can help you collect specific responses about a product or user behavior. Give users a clear set of options from which to choose their answer, making it easier for them to provide their feedback.

These questions work well when you want to learn about users’ preferences or choices. For example, you might ask, “How often do you use the product?” providing respondents with options such as Daily, Weekly, monthly, and Rarely.

The structured format of the insights that you gain by asking multiple-choice questions makes it easier for you to analyze responses quickly and track changes over time. In Figure 4, you can see an example of a multiple-choice question about factors that influence customer satisfaction.

Image source: “Closed Ended Questions: Types, Examples, and Best Practices”

Just don’t forget to add an Other option when asking such questions to elicit useful details. Plus, this can help you gather unexpected responses that you didn’t think of when drafting the questions.

Likert-Scale Questions

Likert-scale questions can help you assess the intensity of the answers that respondents provide when you ask them particular questions. These questions indicate respondents’ level of agreement or disagreement with a particular statement, so are perfect for gathering feedback about user satisfaction or assessing the effectiveness of a particular feature. For example, you might ask visitors about the effectiveness of your Web site’s search feature, using the following question: “The search feature helps me find my desired content with ease,” then give responses that range from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree, as shown in Figure 5.

Image source: “Rating Scales in UX Research: Likert or Semantic Differential?”

Because Likert-scale questions help you measure the intensity of respondents’ opinions, they can help you to identify areas of improvement that demand immediate attention. To collect useful data, you should always be direct and use unbiased statements when asking such questions.

Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions let respondents express their thoughts freely. Instead of choosing their answers from options that you provide, they can explain their experiences, concerns, and suggestions in their own words. These questions are suitable for exploring the reasons behind users’ actions or discovering unexpected insights. For example, you might ask users about their feedback and leave their range of responses completely open, as shown in Figure 6.

Image source: “How to Analyze Open-Ended Questions in SaaS
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Open-ended questions can help you uncover issues of which you are unaware and gather detailed feedback about user experiences. Just keep your questions clear and specific to ensure you obtain actionable insights. Also, be mindful when using such questions in your surveys. Adding too many of them could lead to survey fatigue for respondents or information overload for you.

Rating-Scale Questions

Rating-scale questions can help you collect quantifiable user feedback. Asking such questions is best for inquiring about user satisfaction or when you want to evaluate the effectiveness of certain features. For example, you might ask respondents to rate their experience with your product on a scale from 1 to 10, as shown in Figure 7.

Image source: “Rating scales in UX research: 8 types, use cases & examples”

Because it’s easy to respond to rating-scale questions, you won’t have to grapple with low response rates. You can effortlessly compare the effectiveness of different features or monitor growth or decline over time.

Just ensure that the rating scales are consistent throughout your survey. If you choose a 1–10 scale for one question, stick to that. Also, clearly label your numbers. Don’t leave them open to interpretation, and you can avoid collecting misleading data.

Matrix Questions

By asking matrix questions, you can inquire about multiple things at once. Matrix questions save up space on your data-collection instrument and decrease respondents’ response time. Structure these questions like a grid, allowing users to share information about different things using the same set of criteria. For example, if you offer a project-management solution, you can ask users to rate your features, ease of use, and pricing all in one go, as shown in Figure 8.

Image source: “Multiple Choice Questions”

Just be careful and try not to include too many items in a matrix. You wouldn’t want to end up confusing survey respondents. Also, make sure that you ask only about related items.

Branching Questions

Branching questions can help you personalize the survey experience. Such questions change what respondents see next based on their previous answers. Think of this a creating different paths through your survey. Respondents get to explore what’s relevant to them based on their responses.

This lets you start analyzing respondents’ answers during the data-collection phase rather than waiting for the analysis phase. For example, if you are conducting a survey that specifically targets mobile users, you can ask respondents about their device preferences when interacting with your product. If respondents tell you they access your solution through a desktop computer, do you think there’s any point in asking them further questions beyond that point? Figure 9 provides an example of a branching question.

Image source: Skip Logic Surveys

Branching questions help you save time while collecting highly relevant information. Respondents see only questions that matter to them, which increases chances of a high response rate. Just ensure that your branching logic is simple and well thought out. You must test your surveys before deploying them. You wouldn’t want to end up confusing people.

When to Ask Each Type of Survey Question

Now that you know about different types of user survey questions let’s explore when is the best time to leverage each type.

Asking Demographic Questions

Demographic questions can help you understand who your users are and learn how different audience segments are interacting with your product. They help you create user profiles and identify usage patterns that represent diverse characteristics or different buyer personas. So, if you’re striving to offer personalized experiences, demographic questions could help you achieve your goal.

Demographic questions must be part of every user survey that you conduct. The core objective of adding these questions to your survey is to segment your users according to their different characteristics. These questions can help make your findings presentable, too. You can use the data to create a set of user profiles, making it easier to devise effective growth strategies. Just be mindful about what you ask. You shouldn’t ask for sensitive details or data that you don’t intend to use.

Asking Binary Questions

Binary questions can help you collect straightforward answers from your users. They’re perfect in cases when you require clear responses and are not interested in measuring intensity or exploring details. The benefit of using these questions is that they are easy to answer, so they are likely to boost your response rate. Plus, they can be helpful in obtaining relevant insights that enable you to make immediate decisions.

For example, let's say you want to know about the adoption of a new feature that you’ve launched. Just inquiring whether users have used the feature is sufficient. A simple yes or no answer gives you a clear picture.

Binary questions can also help you qualify users to provide more specific responses later in the same survey. For example, if you want to inquire about users’ satisfaction level with regard to a feature, there’s no point in asking this question of respondents who haven’t experienced using it. Therefore, in a way, you can pair yes or no questions with branching questions to create different paths for potential respondents.

Asking Multiple-Choice Questions

Multiple-choice questions can help you prioritize features or fixes based on user feedback. For example, users might ask you to introduce multiple features or fix different issues with your product. However, launching multiple features simultaneously or fixing many different problems at once could be overwhelming. In such situations, multiple-choice questions can help you prioritize things based on users’ demands or preferences. Their answers will tell you what to tackle first.

There are some different scenarios in which multiple-choice questions can help you make the right call. They’re the best type of question for determining consensus.

An advanced tip: If your survey tool offers scoring capabilities, it is very helpful to attribute a custom score to options for different answers. Consultants often apply this practice to build business assessments and evaluate prospects or customers who take their surveys.

Asking Likert-Scale Questions

Likert-scale questions can help you measure how strongly users feel about certain things or decisions you intend to make. These questions can help you assess user sentiment and let you access more detailed feedback in comparison to questions that require binary responses. So they’re useful when you want to explore more complex answers and need to assess the intensity of users’ responses.

For example, let’s say you wanted to know how satisfied users are with a new feature you’ve just launched. You can assess the likelihood of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Such questions can tell you how far you’ve come. So using a Likert-scale question would be perfect in this situation.

Asking Open-Ended Questions

Asking open-ended questions can help you explore the unknown. They’re useful when you want to understand the reasoning behind users’ actions or uncover issues that you haven’t yet thought about. Instead of limiting users to predetermined options, these questions let them express their thoughts freely.

The use of open-ended questions is suitable when there may be countless possible answers to the questions you’re asking, so limiting respondents to the possibilities that cross your mind wouldn’t be a wise choice to make.

For example, let’s say you come across a huge spike in churn and want to know why people have been leaving or choosing other alternatives over your product. There could be different reasons that cause them to take certain actions. So asking them an open-ended question such as “What caused you to discontinue using our service?” might provide actionable insights. Plus, respondents might reveal issues that you’ve never considered. So just let them express themselves freely and share their concerns.

Asking Rating-Scale Questions

The use cases for rating-scale questions are somewhat similar to those for Likert-scale questions. Rating-scale questions can help you collect quantifiable feedback that you can analyze and compare over time. They work best when you want to know how well a particular feature or product under your brand umbrella performs.

For example, let’s say you’ve been working on improving your home page’s load time. You want to know whether your efforts are paying off. Asking visitors to rate the page’s load time on a scale from 1 to 10, then comparing the answers with baseline numbers can tell you how far you’ve come.

Continuous improvement is the key to engaging with and retaining your user base. So you can periodically ask such questions to track your progress. Thus, you can identify whether the changes or new strategies that you’ve deployed are making things better or worse for your users.

Asking Matrix Questions

Matrix questions are best for collecting user feedback about multiple, related aspects of your solution in one go. You can gather useful information about different features or experiences that you offer, without overwhelming respondents or making your survey too long. Instead of asking separate questions about each aspect, you can combine your questions in a structured format. This saves time for both you and your respondents.

For example, let’s say you want user feedback about your site’s performance. You can create a matrix in which visitors can rate your site’s device compatibility, page speed, user experience, response time, user friendliness, and so on.

Matrix questions work well when the things you’re inquiring about are interrelated. So be strategic and think things through before drafting such questions to ensure you get high-quality responses.

Asking Branching Questions

Use branching questions when you intend to filter responses during data collection rather than sorting the data during analysis. You can create different paths based on user responses, ensuring that you collect useful feedback from the right users.

For example, let’s say you want to assess users’ satisfaction level on mobile. Asking about the device users prefer when accessing your solution before asking key questions can be a useful strategy. Another example might be your inquiring about your product’s premium features. It wouldn’t be right to ask for this information from users who are not premium subscribers? In such situations, branching questions can come in handy. They can help you collect prefiltered responses, making the data easy to analyze.

In Summary

Creating effective user surveys is all about asking the right questions at the right time. The various types of survey questions that you ask serve specific purposes and can help you explore varied insights.

In this article, I’ve discussed different types of user-survey questions to pose to respondents and when you should ask them. I discussed demographic, binary, multiple-choice, open-ended, matrix, and branching questions, along with other types of questions that can help you gauge responses on different scales. If you’ve been wanting to leverage data analytics to refine user experiences, the information I’ve provided in this article will help you to do that.