19 Things to

consider when

deciding on

Question type for

User Research

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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