Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Surveys for User Research

Surveys are frequently used in user-centered design to help us learn more about our users. When utilized properly, surveys may be very potent tools in a user researcher’s toolbox because they involve the collection of information from a sample of individuals through their responses to questions.

So, what exactly are surveys for user research, and when should you utilize them as a UX designer?

You can stay relevant to your consumers’ needs and increase retention by conducting UX research and analyzing client feedback.

Doesn’t every SaaS company aim to accomplish that?

Thus, in this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about surveys for user research and will arm you with the information and guidelines for designing one out. So read on.

What is UX Survey?

The term “user survey” refers to a questionnaire designed specifically for use in user testing and UX research. While surveys have long been a crucial part of applications like market research and academic studies, the subject of user experience places less emphasis on them.

Your user survey questionnaire will be distributed to user testing participants, who may be current clients, participants in a research panel, or early adopters you enlisted throughout the product development process. Their thoughts and responses to the experiment will be recorded.

User testing surveys can be freely completed by participants at their own pace or utilized as a framework for moderated lab-based or live online research, with the researcher using the survey as the basis for their interview.

Types of UX Survey

The kind of information you want to gather from them will determine the kind of user experience survey you should utilize. This section covers the various categories you can use and how they work.

• Customer Effort Score Surveys

CES surveys determine how easy it is for people to use the features of your product. Calling customer care, leaving comments through a widget on your user interface, or moving up a tier are just a few examples of behaviors that constitute consumer effort.

• Customer Satisfaction Surveys

A CSAT survey is used to gauge the level of client satisfaction with your good or service. You should measure CSAT at several user journey touchpoints in order to assess the overall level of satisfaction consumers have with your product.

• NPS Surveys

NPS surveys let you identify customer loyalty levels and proactively address issues that are upsetting users. By examining the qualitative data from NPS surveys, you may learn more about what drives user loyalty and replicate that experience for other relevant user categories.

• Close-ended Questions for Collecting Quantitative Data

You can easily acquire and analyze quantitative data from closed-ended UX survey questions. These questions frequently feature a radio button, a checkbox, or some type of scale or number.

• Open-ended Questions for Qualitative Research

Once you’ve divided the responses from your quantitative surveys into different categories, ask follow-up open-ended questions. Customers can provide more qualitative information about their expectations, experiences, and pain areas by answering an open-ended question in your UX survey.

A Brief Guide on Designing a UX Survey

Now that we’ve discussed what a UX survey is and its types, let’s move on to how to design one.

• Set Your Goal and Expectations

Before sending your users a UX survey, explain the survey’s objectives.

What aspects of your concept or product do you want to improve? What about your users do you hope to learn?

• Put Together the Questionnaire

Now that the goal(s) have been established, you must begin creating the questionnaire for the customers. Your inquiries should contain the appropriate amount of quantitative and qualitative information.

• Recruit the Participants

If you aren’t posing the appropriate queries to the appropriate users, you will never receive pertinent responses from your audience. Segmenting your audience based on the survey’s goal will help you find suitable respondents.

• Set a Screener

When you launch the survey, it’s possible that the wrong people will respond, costing you a tonne of money and lowering the quality of the data.

If you create a few screening questions for the audience. They inform you whether they fit your personas or not by entering the data. This can assist in focusing on the right users.

• Introduce the Updates to Real Customers

After a few little tweaks here and there, you are ready to disseminate this questionnaire to your real users.

When to Conduct UX Surveys?

Customer feedback shouldn’t just be acquired once; it should be frequently gathered and considered.

UX surveys should be carried out at several points during the client experience. It will help you identify the barriers preventing your user from passing each stage so you can take out those components.

By examining the data, you can determine whether some features need to be upgraded or whether a brand-new feature is necessary.

In the end, you need to realize that your survey’s users helped you with your survey.

To conclude with a remark of gratitude.