.svg)
UX research surveys are a great way to collect feedback from your target audience on how they feel about a particular product. The results of this survey can be used to make product improvements and help steer future UX design decisions.
If you are thinking about conducting your own UX research in the near future, check out this ultimate guide on how to design a UX research survey.
It will quickly show you the most important information you need for designing your own UX research survey so that you can gather the best data possible and accurately assess the needs of your users.
What Is UX research survey?
Surveys have been around for centuries. The application of surveys has provided great insights into people's behaviors and attitudes. Though surveys were primarily used in research-based initiatives, they are now widely adopted by businesses.
Businesses employ a survey to chew on the opinions of their customers to determine the success of a unique business model or product.
A UX research survey is a survey that you send to your customers, prospects, or users in order to learn more about their experience with your product or service.
The questions you ask them can be designed to uncover specific problems e.g.,
Why do you use this feature? gather demographic information e.g., what’s your age range? or find out what they think about your brand and its products/services e.g., how likely are you to recommend our product/service to others?
The goal of a UX research survey is to give you insight into how people are actually using your product or service, what they like about it, what they hate about it, and how they would improve it — so that you can make better decisions about how to move forward with the development process.
Why Do UX Research Surveys Matter?
UX research surveys are an essential part of any UX strategy because they help companies understand how their users think and behave — which is crucial for creating effective products that people will actually use and enjoy using over time.
The results of a UX research survey can help you improve your website or app. For example, if most people don’t like the color of your shopping cart button, it might be time to change it!
How do you write a survey for UX research?
A survey is an essential part of UX research. It can be used to ask users questions about their experience and get their feedback on your product or service.
Surveys can also be used to collect quantitative data, such as how many people clicked on a button, or how many times they changed their mind while filling out your form.
The key to successful surveys is knowing how to write them so that they are effective and efficient. Ask one question at a time. If you ask too many questions at once, respondents may not be able to answer all of them properly.
For example, if you want to know whether they like your new logo design and whether they think it will attract more customers, don't ask both questions in one question!
Instead break down these two objectives into separate questions so that each objective can be addressed separately.
What should I ask in UX survey?
In a UX survey, you can ask questions about the following topics:
- Product usage. What does your user like and dislike about your product? What did they expect to see and not see? How do they use your product? How did they find out about it and why did they choose it over other options?
- User preferences. What are their favorite features of your product? What features do they want to see in the future? What features do they not need or want?
- Customer support needs. What problems do customers have with your product, and how can you solve them? Do customers want more tutorials or documentation on how to use your product, or would they prefer if you offered more support options such as live chat or email support?
- Ask open-ended questions (rather than multiple choice) so that respondents have the freedom to express themselves freely. For example: “What do you like most about our product?” vs “Select one of these options: 1) The colors 2) The logo 3) The layout”
- Ask neutral questions that don’t require any specific knowledge or context before answering them (e.g., “How satisfied are you with our product?” vs “Do you think our logo is effective as a brand identifier?”).
How do you analyze survey data in UX research?
UX research is a scientific method for collecting user feedback, analyzing it and using the findings to improve products. As with any scientific method, there are several steps involved:
Define the problem: What do you want to learn from your users? What problems are they having? Why do you need this information?
Identify opportunities: Who are your users? Where do they live? What devices do they use? What platforms do they use?
Create a hypothesis: Based on what you know about your audience, what questions should you ask them? How will you get answers from them? (In other words, how will you conduct the research?) How will you analyze their answers once you have them?
It's important to write down these assumptions so that when they're wrong (and they usually are), you can see where things went wrong early on instead of after all the time and effort has been spent gathering data.
I've used SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics to conduct surveys in my research. Both are great tools, but they have their own quirks and strengths.
When would you use a survey in UX?
Surveys are a great way to gather information from your users and to help you understand how they feel about your product. Surveys can help you test new features, validate product ideas and improve the overall user experience.
Surveys can be used in many different ways, including:
- Testing new features.
Use surveys to find out what customers think of your latest product or feature before it's launched. You may also want to ask them how they would like it to work — and then compare their responses with how they actually use it once it's released.
- Validate product ideas.
Survey users about concepts that you're exploring in order to get feedback on whether or not they'll work well before investing too much time or money into them. You can also use surveys after launching something new to see if customers like the idea enough for you to continue developing it or whether it should be removed from your product roadmap altogether.
- Improve UX design and functionality.
Surveys can help you determine which parts of your website or app are confusing, difficult or annoying for users so that you can fix them accordingly — without having to guess at what needs improvement based on only anecdotal evidence from people who have complained about various issues in the past.
- Market research:
Surveys can be used to collect data about your audience, such as age group, gender and location. You may also want to include questions about their interests and how they use your products in order to learn more about them. This data helps you understand who is using your product and what kind of features they like — which in turn helps you create better products for them.
How do you frame a UX research question?
UX research is all about asking good questions. But it's not always easy to know how to frame a UX research question or what types of questions to ask.
One way to think about framing a UX research question is by using the five Ws and one H (who, what, where, when, why and how).
The Five Ws and One H are a simple format for any question that needs an answer. They're often used in journalism as part of the news reporting process: who, what, where, when and why are the basic elements of most news stories.
In UX design, these elements can be applied to any type of research question:
- Who am I talking about?
- What do they want?
- Where do they go?
- When does it happen?
- Why do they act this way?
- How does it work?
UX research questions are like the foundation of a house. It's the base upon which you build your design solution.
A good UX research question is:
Focused - It focuses on one aspect of user behavior and avoids the other secondary factors.
Specific - It describes an action or task that users perform in their daily lives, with specific details about the context.
Valid - It's relevant to your users, your product, and your business goals.
Conclusion:
At least, that's how I made my survey. My aim was not to get the highest number of responses, or to get participants most invested in the topic, instead I wanted to find people who were either already interested (those who picked the topic because they were already searching online in that area) or might be interested if they gave it a try (those who answered a question even just halfway).
