Open questions in usability testing

Open questions start with: what, why, who, when, where, how

I’ve had to hone my questioning technique after 100s of usability tests.

When I first started, my open questions were too long.  Or they were often followed by a closed question.  And I was asking too many closed questions.  Closed questions are likely to elicit yes or no answers, and short answers.  I do use them in usability tests and customer research.  But only when I want a participant to confirm something.  I.e. when I want a yes or no.  Or, for example, want to know how long they’ve been purchasing a product.

But open questions are crucial for extracting participant’s thoughts, feelings, and reasoning.

 

Open question examples for usability testing

Here’s how to turn some classic closed questions into great open questions:

 

 

Appendix – summary open questions for usability testing:

 

Open (do use):
How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with this process?

Closed (do not use):
Are you satisfied?

 

Open (do use):
What would (did) you expect to happen when you here?

Closed (do not use):
Did it act as you expected?

 

Open (do use):

Before a task:
Please tell me when you’ve found the item.
Explain how you would find that etc

After a task:
Where did you find the answer?
Where was the item?
What did you find?

Closed (do not use):

Did you find it?

 

Open (do use):

How would this fit into your work?
How might this change the way you do that today?

Closed (do not use):

Do you think you would use this?

 

Open (do use):

What do you think about that?

Closed (do not use):

Does that work for you?

 

Open (do use):

What kinds of questions or difficulties have you had when doing this in the past?
What happened when you did this before?
Please describe your level of experience with …

Closed (do not use):

Have you done this before?

 

Open (do use):

What’s most confusing or annoying about … ?
What worked well for you?

Closed (do not use):

Is this easy to use?

 

Open (do use):

How do you know … ?

Closed (do not use):

Did you know … ?

 

Open (do use):

How do you normally … ?

Closed (do not use):

Do you normally … ?

 

Open (do use):

What just happened?
What was that?

Closed (do not use):

Did you see that?

 

Open (do use):

What would you most want to change about … ?
Which things did you like the best about … ?

Closed (do not use):

Do you like this?

 

Open (do use):

Before a task:
What do you expect to see when you … ?

After a task:
Which (other) kinds of information would likely be in there?
What were you expecting?

Closed (do not use):

Did you expect this kind of information to be in there?