How to Write Usability Questions for a Website in 6 Simple Steps

Knowing how to write usability questions for a website will greatly aid your user research of your site.

Since statistics say that every $1 invested in UX implementation results in a return of $100 in profits, adding researching user experience can be the best choice for improving your service, product, or company.

Usability tests are used to test how user friendly a website (or an app or other digital item) is to customers and/or visitors and (hopefully) find pain points and opportunities to improve the site. These tests consist of observing a user go through a process on a website and then having the user answer usability questions about the website/process. These usability questions are purposefully written to gain specific information about potential issues or gaps in the user’s journey through the site.

How to write usability questions for a website has six main steps:

• Choose a goal/method/process to investigate.
• Break down the process into a finite goal.
• Find unknowns and uncertainties about the user’s view of the process.
• Start writing the questions.
• Make Questions specific and easy.
• Make a place for notes for users to elaborate.

Benefits of Surveys vs. Usability Tests

Surveys

A survey is a way to gather information from a group of people about something, using a series of questions that users or respondents answer. Online surveys are conducted by getting users to go to the survey URL (usually through email or newsletter attachments or links through receipts upon purchase of items or services) and filling it out (usually with a discount, coupon, or gift card as incentive).

Conducting surveys will allow customers to let you know about issues in a process. You can find: 

• Physical pain points, 
• Emotional turn-offs or frustrations,
• Potential additions to make products or tools better,
• New products or services to add to your brand.

Also, surveys can be conducted anonymously with the user’s personal information kept out of the research study. This method is mostly passive so you don’t have to take time out of your or your customer’s day to conduct this research (most people actually like taking surveys at night rather than during the day). Online surveys are remote so users can take them whenever or wherever they want, making it very user friendly.

To find more about how to write up a survey, click here.

Usability tests

Usability tests are done by observing a user (or better yet, multiple users) go through a process on a website and then having the user answer usability questions about the website and the process. There is usually a written script that the researcher follows to make sure that the user goes through the correct process and feels at ease when doing the test. The final benefits of doing usability tests are about the same as surveys.

However, usability test have the following elements that are different from surveys:

• The researcher gets to watch the user go through the process, revealing elements that the user may be unaware of,
• The test is done at a set time and place, so when the data will be available is known,
• The number of users and datasets is known,
• The length of the testing period is set and is known.

How to Write Usability Questions for a Website

How to write usability questions for a website has 6 steps.

Make the process a simple to understand, yet not directed goal for the user to do. The user needs to complete the goal without help or aid in order to get the best and most accurate data about a user’s journey. The goal should be something that users actually want to do/accomplish on the website in question, making the process as authentic as possible.

3. Find unknowns and uncertainties about the user’s view of the process.

Try to guess the sticking points of the process of completing the goal. What seems the most difficult and least intuitive in the process? What are the major steps of completing the goal? What do you expect to be the simplest part of the process? Part of usability testing is confirming theories about established smooth parts as well as issues.

4. Start writing the questions.

5. Make the Questions specific and easy to understand.

Write the questions to be easy to ask and for users to understand, using plain language as much as possible. Whether the usability questions are for a survey or usability test, the questions should be: 

• No more than 2 lines long or take more than 10 seconds to read,
• Devoid of slang or field lingo (unless the process is specific to a field),
• Clear about the scale used (e.g., on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the hardest…)
• Between 6-15 questions total are asked.

6. Make place for notes for users to elaborate.

When writing a usability test, leave several lines blank below questions to put notes in, whether they be remarks of the user/tester or things that the researcher noticed. When writing a survey, place an optional write out a long answer question for if the user has any other comments, observations, or concerns that the other questions did not cover.

Summary

Using usability questions for a website is an excellent way to conduct UX research. Usability tests are used to test how user friendly a website (or an app or other digital item) is to customers and/or visitors and (hopefully) find pain points and opportunities to improve the site. Usability questions are purposefully written to gain specific information about potential issues or gaps in the user’s journey through the site. 

How to write usability questions for a website has six main steps:

• Choose a goal/method/process to investigate.
• Break down the process into a finite goal.
• Find unknowns and uncertainties about the user’s view of the process.
• Start writing the questions.
• Make the Questions specific and easy.
• Make a place for notes for users to elaborate.