19 things to consider when choosing question types for user research
TRANSCRIPT
When to use Open - Ended Questions?
1.For Exploratory Studies
● In-depth interviews
● Persona research
● Qualitative Usability
Testing
● Diary Studies
Open - ended
2.
You want to explore respondents’ needs & behavior
● You want to
understand the needs
of the users
● How your customers
use your product
● Which of the users’
problems you want to
solve
Open - ended
3.
You want to understand customers’ problems
● Probe deeply into
issues
● Can reveal surprising
mental models
● Can uncover
customers’ strong
emotions such as fear,
hope.
Open - ended
4.You expect Long Responses
● Multiple sentences,
stories, lists or even
paragraphs
● Spontaneous
responses
Open - ended
5.You want to know User’s opinions and feedback
● Opportunity for users
to complain about a
bad experience
Open - ended
6.You want to uncover user’s experience with your product
● Insights to improve
your product
● Advantage of getting
insights you can’t (or
difficult to) collect
through other ways
Open - ended
7.When you don’t want to miss opportunity to gain insights on topic you are not familiar with
● Respondents may
share attitudes,
behaviors and concerns
you might not expect
or is aware of
Open - ended
8.To use before a conclusive research
● These responses will be
useful to design the
survey structure and
questions
Open - ended
9.You want qualitative data
● Difficult to compile into
charts or tables
● Sometimes you can
code responses,
however it is difficult to
interpret respondents’
words correctly
Open - ended
10.You want to know what, how, why
● Questions begin with
these words
● ‘Why’ can sometimes
mislead to come up
with a reason even
when there isn’t any
Open - ended
11.You expect unique, unanticipated answers
● Users can freely
express what they feel
or think about certain
things
● Might reveal
interesting responses
or insights
Open - ended
When to use Closed-Ended Questions
12.
You want higher response rates
● Where you can easily
distribute and expect
quick responses
● For larger populations
● For repeated research
Closed - ended
13.You want to keep the conversation in control
● Yes or No, Agree or
Disagree type answers
or responses with
limited choices
● You want exact,
quantifiable and
predictable responses
Closed - ended
14.You expect short, factual answers
● Limited responses such
as in multiple choice or
where respondents can
fill short answers
Closed - ended
15.
For quantifiable data
● Easy to code for
analysis
● Compile Data into
tables and charts
Closed - ended
16.Easy to Analyze
● Responses can be
given a no. or value to
code for analysis
Closed - ended
17.When you have in-depth knowledge of topic
● Researcher must have
clear understanding of
the topic to provide
options for responses
● He/ she should be
aware of how it ties to
the overall research
problem
Closed - ended
18.For Statistically significant results
● Results can be
concluded for the
entire population
Closed - ended
19.Examples
● Multiple choice
● Semantic Differential
● Drop-down
● Checkboxes
Closed - ended
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