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Open-ended questions vs. close-concluded questions: examples and how to survey users

Unless you're a mind reader, the only way to observe out what people are thinking is to enquire them.

That'southward what surveys are for. Merely the way you inquire the question oft determines the kind of answer you get back—and i of the get-go decisions you have to make is: are y'all going to ask an open-ended or a closed-ended question?

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Open-concluded questions are broad and can exist answered in detail (e.k. "What do y'all think most this production?"), whileclosed-ended questions are narrow in focus and usually answered with a unmarried word or a pick from limited multiple-choice options (e.g. "Are you satisfied with this production?" →Yes/No/Generally/Not quite).

Past understanding the departure between the 2, you can acquire toinquirebetter questions and get better, more actionable answers. The examples below expect at open- and closed-ended questions in the context of a website survey, but the principle applies beyond whatever type of survey yous may want to run.

Open-ended vs. close-concluded questions: what'south the difference?

The difference between open-ended and close-ended questions is that close-ended questions provide a specified range of questions that the respondent must choose from, while open-concluded questions permit respondents to respond as they wish. To become a better idea of these two types of questions, permit'south take a closer look at each.

What are open-concluded questions?

Open-ended questions are questions that cannot exist answered with a elementary 'yeah' or 'no', and instead crave the respondent to elaborate on their points.

Open-ended questions assistance youssee things from a client'southward perspective as yous get feedback in their ain words instead of stock answers. You tin can analyze open-ended questions using spreadsheets, view qualitative trends, and even spot elements that stand up out with word cloud visualizations.

A wordcloud generated from open-concluded question responses to "What do you like about Hotjar?"

What are airtight-ended questions?

Closed-ended questions are questions that tin can only beanswered by selecting from a limited number of options, unremarkably multiple-choice questions with a unmarried-word respond , 'yeah' or 'no', or a rating scale (e.g. from strongly agree to strongly disagree).

Closed-ended questions give limited insight, but can easily exist analyzed forquantitative data. For instance, one of the most popular closed questions in marketing is the Cyberspace Promoter Score® (NPS) question, which asks people "How likely are you to recommend this production/service on a scale from 0 to ten?" and uses numerical answers to calculate overall score trends.

Quantitative data from a closed-question nps survey

When to use open-ended questions and closed-concluded questions

Whether you're office of a marketing, production, sales, or user research team, askingthe right questions through customer interviews or on-site surveys helps y'all collect feedback to create meliorate user experiences and—ultimately— increase conversions and sales.

Equally a dominion of thumb, the blazon of question y'all choose depends on what you lot are trying to accomplish:

• Ask a airtight-ended question when you desire answers that can be plotted on a graph and used to show trends and percentages. For example, answers to the closed-ended question "Do you trust the information on [website]?" will help you empathise the proportion of people who notice your website trustworthy versus those who practice not:

• Enquire an open up-concluded question when y'all want to develop a better agreement of your customers and their needs, get more context behind their actions, and/or investigate the reasons behind their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with your product. For example, the open-concluded question "If yous could change anything on this folio, what would information technology be?" allows your customers to express, in their own words, what they think you should be working on adjacent:

7 examples of open-ended questions vs closed-ended questions

Nearly closed-ended questions tin be turned into open-ended questions with a few minor changes. Here'southward an instance: on the left- mitt side, you have closed-ended questions; on the right-paw side, each question has been tweaked into an open-ended version that allows respondents to elaborate further.

• All the closed questions in the left cavalcade tin be answered with a one-word respond, specifically Yes or No.

  These answers can give you the general sentiment of each user and a few useful information points about their satisfaction, which can assistance y'all await at trends and percentages

  —for example, did the proportion of people who declared themselves happy with your website change in the last 1, 3, 6, 12 months?

• The open-ended questions in the right column requite customers an opportunity to provide additional information and help you sympathise the context backside a trouble or learn more virtually your USPs (unique selling points) instead. And then if it's qualitative data like this you lot're later, the easy manner to convert closed-ended into open-ended questions is to think most the range of possible responses and re-word your questions to let a free answer.

🔥 Pro tip: when surveying people on your website, ask questions that can help you observe out both thewhat and thewhy behind your users' deportment. You can attain it bycombining open- and closed-ended questions as part of the aforementioned survey:

• Start from a closed-ended question, which normally costs people little endeavour to reply

• Continue with a follow-up open-ended question, which gives them an opportunity—should they want to take it—to elaborate on the respond.

An instance of airtight-ended and open up-ended question from 1 of our web log pages

📚 Read more: here are xx+ real examples of open- and closed-ended questions you lot tin can ask on your website.

v of our favorite open-ended questions to enquire customers

Now that you knowhow to ask open up-concluded questions, it's time to kickoff putting the cognition into practice.

To survey your website users, utilize Hotjar's feedback tools to run on-page surveys, collect answers, and visualize results. You can create surveys that run through the unabridged site, or choose to display them on specific pages (URLs) only:

As perwhat to ask—if you're getting started, the five open-ended questions below are ideal for ecommerce sites (or any website that can benefit from user research and insight):

1. How can we make this folio ameliorate

2. Where exactly did you showtime hear virtually us?

3. What is stopping you from [action] today?

4. What are your main concerns or questions about [product/service]?

5. What persuaded you to [take action] today?

i. How can we brand this page amend?

Short and to the point, asking a user how a page tin can be ameliorate leaves the door wide open up to a multitude of answers yous may not have thought of.

2. Where exactly did you first hear about us?

An open "How did you find out about u.s.a.?" question leaves users to respond freely, without leading them to a stock response, and gives you lot valuable data that might exist harder to rails with traditional analytics tools.

We've pre-built a traffic attribution survey template ready and waiting for you to apply. Check it out here.

three. What is stopping you from [action] today?

A "what is stopping you lot?" question can be shown on exit pages; the open up-form answers will help you place the barriers to conversion that stop people from taking action.

🏆Pro tip: questions like this 1 can also exist triggered in a post-buy survey that shows upward on a thank you or order confirmation page. This type of survey only focuses on confirmed customers; subsequently asking whatvirtually stopped them, yous can accost whatsoever potential obstacles they highlight and fix them for the residual of your site visitors.

4. What are your master concerns or questions nigh [product/service]?

Finding out theconcerns and objections of customers on your website will assistance you accost them in future versions of the folio(south) they're on. It sounds simple, merely you'll exist surprised past how candid and helpful your users will exist when answering this one.

Want to gather feedback on your product? Learn what to improve and understand what users really call up with our free survey template.

5. What persuaded you to [have activity] today?

Learning what fabricated a customer click 'buy now' or 'sign up' will assistance youidentify your levers. Maybe information technology's low prices, fast shipping, or excellent client service—whatever the reason, finding out what draws customers in and convinces them to stay will let you to emphasize these benefits to other users and, ultimately,increase conversions.

🏆 Editor'due south tip: here are 50+ more survey questions to help you craft a better questionnaire for your users.

Why asking open up-ended questions to your customers can increase sales

When users have the time to open to you lot and give you feedback on the surveys and polls you've gear up upwards,it's usually open-ended questions that lead to the most valuable feedback and rich insights.

There is notwithstanding a time and a identify for airtight-ended questions (run into NPS, for example), only, as Sarah Doody, author of UX Notebook, explained to us when we interviewed her a few months back:

Open-ended questions are perfect for finding out:

What did customers bask well-nigh our business organisation?

Spotting your strengths helps youshowcase your value to more users, and could pb to furtherbusiness insight across UX. For example, maybe you offer regular coupons to increase sales, but customers don't mention lower prices as their reason for purchasing—this could prompt you to evaluate hereafter discounting decisions and consider toll changes.

What can nosotros meliorate?

An open platform for yourcustomers to tell you their pain points is far more valuable for improving client satisfaction than guessing what improvements you lot should make. Bug could range from technical bugs to lack of product range: you won't know until you enquire.

Where did nosotros autumn short?

If you missed the expectations fix past a customer, you lot may take over-promised or under-delivered. Ask users where you missed the marking today, and you'll know how to properly set, and meet, expectations in the time to come.

📚 Read more: here'due south some expert advice on which product questions to ask when your product isn't selling.

How to ask survey questions to customers

Information technology'southward often easy to lead your customers to the answer you desire, and so brand sure you're post-obit these guidelines:

ane. Embrace negative feedback

Some customers may find it too hard to get out negative feedback if your questions are worded poorly.

For case, "Nosotros hope there wasn't anything bad about your experience with us, but if and then, please let us know" is improve phrased neutrally as "Permit us know if there was anything you'd like united states of america to do differently." Information technology might sting a lilliputian to hear negative comments, merely it'southward your biggest opportunity to reallyempathize with customers and fuel your UX improvements moving forrad.

🏆 Pro tip: we actually call back information technology's worthencouraging negative feedback from survey respondents! An easy way to practice it is by emphasizing the fact that honest answers are crucial to improving a production/service:

ii. Don't lead your customers

"You bought 300 apples over the past year. What'due south your favorite fruit?" is an example of aleading question. Y'all but planted the idea of an apple in your customers' mind. Valuable survey questions are open and objective; permit people respond them in their ain words, from their ain perspective, and yous'll become more than meaningful answers.

3. Avoid asking "and why?"

Tacking "and why?" on at the end of a question will just give you uncomplicated answers. And, no, adding "and why?" will not turn closed-ended questions into open-ended ones!

Asking "What did you buy today,and why?" will give y'all an respond similar "three pairs of socks for a gift" (and that's if you're lucky: many ignore the "and why?" part), whereas diction the question as "Why did you choose to make a purchase today" can allow for an open answer, for example, "I saw your special offer and bought socks for my niece."

Keep your survey simple

Not many folks love filling in a survey that's 50 questions long and takes an hour to complete. For the most effective data drove (and decent response rates), you demand to keep the respondents' attention span in mind. Value your customer's fourth dimension by keeping your surveyselementary, concise, and to-the-point with these 3 tips:

i. Proceed question length curt

Practiced questions are one sentence long and worded as concisely as possible.

ii. Limit the number of questions

Accept your list of planned questions and be ruthless when narrowing them downwardly. Proceed the questions that yous know volition lead to direct insight, and ditch the rest.

three. Bear witness survey progress while completing

A simple progress bar, or an indication of how many questions are left, will help keep users motivated to proceed answering your survey.

Open-concluded questions vs closed-concluded questions in a nutshell

• Open-ended questions let people express their opinions, in their own words

• Closed-ended questions let express responses, like 'yes' or 'no'

• Closed-ended questions provide some quantitative data on users (e.g., NPS survey)

• Open-ended questions lead to insightful answers that can help you empathize with users and how they experience your website

• You can plow a closed question into an open-ended i by request for detail

• Avoid asking leading questions, or appending questions with "and why?"

• Good surveys have a few, short questions and a progress bar

Cyberspace Promoter, Net Promoter System, Internet Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

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Source: https://www.hotjar.com/blog/open-ended-questions/