User Experience Methods Catalogue

# Questionnaire

Purpose
Collect ratings from users
Time required
approx. 1-2 man-days
Participants
Usability/UX tester, user
Level of experience
experienced
Example of an online questionnaire

# Summary

Questionnaires can be used for user studies or as (online) surveys. They are used to collect user opinions in the form of quantitative and/or qualitative data. If standardised usability questionnaires (e.g. System Usability Scale (SUS)) are used, usability can be recorded quantitatively and comparably. By asking open questions, qualitative results can be achieved which, for example, contain usability problems and experiences with the interactive system.

# Result

A usability assessment and user opinions of the interactive system in quantitative and/or qualitative form.

# Approach

The target group of the questionnaire must be determined in advance and a suitable questionnaire selected or created. The latter is strongly dependent on the objective of this evaluation method. After this selection has been made, a pre-test should be carried out. This serves the estimation of the duration of the survey as well as the examination of comprehensibility and logical sequence. Only after this, the potential candidates should be contacted for a survey.

During the survey, it may be necessary to answer questions from the respondents.

After completion of the survey, it must be evaluated and documented. For some questionnaires, there are templates that ease the evaluation.

# Time of use

This method can be applied to both finished applications and prototypes.

# Tools and Templates

# Advantages

It is possible to obtain a large amount of data with relatively little effort. Through the use of standardized questionnaires, comparisons between systems or a before and after comparison are possible. In contrast to observation and interviews, a quantitative measurement of usability or user experience is possible.

# Disadvantages

In contrast to interviews, there is no possibility to ask questions and to understand backgrounds or to eliminate comprehension difficulties. Furthermore, the quality of the results depends strongly on the quality of the questionnaire. In addition, the individual creation of a questionnaire is time-consuming and requires experience and specialist knowledge. Possibly the statements a user wants to make do not fit to the given questions and relevant aspects get lost. As with other methods, the evaluation of qualitative data is complex.

# Hints

When designing the questionnaire, it is important to keep it as short as possible. Long questionnaires discourage participants and increase the evaluation effort. For each question, the necessity should be justifiable with the goal (e.g., determination of usability). Generally, established questionnaires should be preferred to custom-developed questionnaires.

# Sources

← Thinking Aloud →