Key takeaways
💡Standardized usability questionnaires provide reliable and comparable data to evaluate and improve user experience across products.
📊 There are various types of usability questionnaires, including post-task and post-study formats, each serving different feedback needs.
☀️ Benefits of standardized questionnaires include consistency, reliability, benchmarking, and actionable insights for enhancing digital products.
🔦 Specific questionnaires, like SUS, UMUX, and SUPR-Q, serve different purposes, helping researchers choose the best fit for their testing goals.
Whether an app, a website, or a platform, the ease with which a digital product can be used and adopted by users is the alpha and the omega for its success.
This is why companies need to adopt ways to measure usability, ensuring that their product meets and exceeds users’ expectations. This is also why in this article we have collated everything you need to know about the 6 most common standardized usability questionnaires.
What are standardized usability questionnaires?
Standardized usability questionnaires are critical tools for assessing how users perceive the usability of a product. Those questionnaires typically focus on different usability aspects such as the user’s satisfaction the, effectiveness of the system, and its learnability.
Due to their standardized nature, UX professionals can utilize these predefined scales and gather reliable and comparable data. This way, companies have a benchmark to evaluate the product’s performance over time and in comparison to the competitive market.
On top of that, contrary to ad-hoc surveys which can vary from researcher to researcher, standardized questionnaires having already been tested and validated can apply to a range of usability testing scenarios always leading to trustworthy results.
Before using such questionnaires in your research, make sure to learn the basics.
There are 5 most important usability testing metrics to know – and we have a short video to help you out! ⬇️
Types of usability questionnaires
Now that we have defined what a standardized usability questionnaire is let’s explore the main types of usability questionnaires:
Post-task questionnaires
The first main type of standardized usability questionnaire is the post-task questionnaire. This type of questionnaire is administered after a user completes a specific task on an interface. Post-task questionnaires are designed to capture immediate feedback about the users’ satisfaction, the ease of the task in question, as well as any issues they might have countered while completing the task.
They are also a great way to pinpoint whether a task or an interaction needs to be redesigned or fine-tuned to meet the needs and expectations of the user.
Post-study questionnaires
The second type of standardized usability questionnaire is the post-study questionnaire. This type of questionnaire is administered right at the end of a usability testing session and it focuses on the overall experience of the user with the interface or the product. Post-study questionnaires help UX researchers to understand general usability concerns and they provide insights into the overall user experience.
8 benefits of standardized usability questionnaires
Due to their standardized nature usability questionnaires can have a host of advantages for the business that uses them. Here are 8 benefits of standardized usability questionnaires that will make your product team opt for them and ditch custom-made surveys:
Consistency
First and foremost, one of the most critical advantages of standardized usability questionnaires is consistency. Those surveys have already been tested and validated, ensuring that upon their use, researchers will be able to gather and interpret data in a standardized way and that results will be consistent across the board.
Reliability
Another major benefit of this type of questionnaire is that they are built based on testing. The use of standardized questions but also standardized response options leads to reliable measurements and minimizes the variations in the results.
Validity
Those standardized usability questions apart from rigorous testing are also based on industry-approved theoretical frameworks. In this way, they offer a valid way to assess not only the usability of a digital product but also user satisfaction.
Ease of use
Another great advantage of the standardized usability questionnaires is the ease of use. These surveys again due to their standardized nature are not only easy to administer but also easy to analyze. This permits researchers and product teams to focus on analyzing results rather than engaging every time in the design of complex surveys.
Benchmarking
Standardized usability questionnaires offer UX researchers and product teams a unique opportunity to create benchmarks around the effectiveness of the digital interface and user satisfaction. These benchmarks can be used to track performance against industry standards.
Efficiency
The efficiency that those usability questionnaires offer is sought after! These surveys allow the quick collection of large amounts of data without sacrificing of a ton of time or resources during usability testing.
Flexibility
Another amazing advantage of standardized usability questionnaires is that although standardized they can be used in a variety of scenarios and across industries, making it a highly flexible tool in the UX researcher’s arsenal.
Actionable insights
Last but not least, the common standardized usability questionnaires provide actionable insights into the usability of the interface and user satisfaction by highlighting specific usability issues and providing clear directions for improvements.
System Usability Scale (SUS)
The System Usability Scale (SUS) is one of the most widely used usability questionnaires out there. This questionnaire was developed in the 80s by John Brooke and it was designed to assess the perceived usability of the system using a 10-item survey.
In this survey, each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale with ranges from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.” The System Usability Scale (SUS) focuses on the overall usability by assessing how easy or difficult users find the system to be and how confident they feel using it.
SUS benefits:
- Simplicity: This 10-item questionnaire is quick and easy to use. It also provides a single usability score which makes it easier to analyze.
- Versatility: The System Usability Scales survey is a versatile tool that applies to a wide range of products from digital interfaces to physical products.
SUS drawbacks:
- No qualitative insights: This survey measures the overall ease of use and user satisfaction, however, it cannot capture qualitative feedback.
- Subjectivity: The results of the survey are based on subjective opinions which might not reflect the truth.
Usability Metric for User Experience (UMUX)
The Usability Metric for User Experience (UMUX) is an alternative to SUS and it is designed to provide an overall assessment of the usability of a system or an interface. This survey consists of only 4 items. Each item is rated on a 7-point likert scale. The Usability Metric for User Experience (UMUX) focuses on three pillars: effectiveness efficiency, and satisfaction.
UMUX benefits:
- No survey fatigue: With only four items, this survey saves you and your users time and reduces the chances of survey fatigue.
UMUX drawbacks:
- Lack of in-depth insights: While this survey is a reliable measure of usability it lacks in-depth insights.
UMUX-Lite
The UMUX-Lite is a cut-down version of the UMUX questionnaire consisting of just two items. The survey focuses on the overall usability of the system Assessing the ease of use of the product and whether the product meets user needs. UXUM-Lite is ideal for studies with limited timelines.
UMUX-Lite benefits:
- Brevity: This is a brief questionnaire, which ensures that users won’t experience survey fatigue.
- Strong Correlation with SUS: It has been found to provide results that generally correlate with longer usability questionnaires.
UMUX-Lite drawbacks:
- Limited Scope: Due to its brevity, this survey has a limited scope and it is not ideal for pinpointing specific usability issues.
Want to learn about UMUX-lite in detail? Check out our guide!
User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ)
The User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) Is designed to assess both the usability of a product and the user experience. It consists of 26 questionnaire items and it focuses on a range of parameters covering attractiveness, efficiency, dependability, stimulation, and novelty. This tool is ideal for usability evaluations of products like native applications or websites.
UEQ benefits:
- Holistic Evaluation: It is a reliable questionnaire that provides a comprehensive evaluation of the interface in question making it the perfect tool for more in-depth usability studies.
UEQ drawbacks:
- Length: This is a long survey which can result in survey fatigue.
- Complex Analysis: UEQ Requires a more complex analysis of the result compared to other shorter questionnaires.
Want to learn about UMUX-lite in detail? Check out our guide!
Standardized User Experience Percentile Rank Questionnaire (SUPR-Q)
The Standardized User Experience Percentile Rank Questionnaire (SUPR-Q) is designed for assessing websites. This survey measures the credibility and usability of a website. Its results can be used as a benchmark that can be compared against other websites in the market. The Standardized User Experience Percentile Rank Questionnaire (SUPR-Q) focuses on website evaluations offering in-depth insights into the trustworthiness of the system.
SURP-Q benefits:
- Industry Benchmarking: SUPR-Q’s score allows comparison against a large database of websites.
- Barometer for Credibility: It captures user perceptions of credibility and trustworthiness.
SUPR-Q drawbacks:
- Limited to Websites: This is a tool primarily used for websites and not as applicable for non-web-based products.
- Requires Comparison: The results of the survey are more meaningful when compared to other similar data available.
Want to learn about SURP-Q in detail? Check out our guide!
Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction (QUIS)
The Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction (QUIS) assesses user satisfaction when it comes to software interfaces. This survey is highly customizable and it measures user satisfaction across 11 different categories including but not limited to screen layout and terminology.
QUIS benefits:
- Highly Customizable: This is a highly customizable survey that can be tailored to measure different aspects of user interaction.
- Detailed Insights: This questionnaire offers in-depth insights into the different elements of the interface.
QUIS drawbacks:
- Analysis Complexity: This survey requires a complex analysis due to its customizable nature.
Want to learn about QUIS in detail? Check out our guide!
How to choose the right questionnaire for your research?
Choosing a questionnaire for your research depends on a range of different parameters such as specific research objectives, the type of system that is being assessed as well as the stage of the development process where the product is in.
If you find choosing the right question for your research tricky, fear not. Here is a super quick and handy guide that can help you hit the ground running with choosing the appropriate questionnaire:
- If you’re looking for a quick usability score then use SUS.
- If you are after a brief but effective usability measure then you can either use UMUX or UMUX-Lite.
- If you want a more comprehensive UX evaluation then it’s EUQ!
- For website evaluations only use SUPR-Q.
- If you want to evaluate a software interface then it’s QUIS.
If you want to improve your usability testing studies, check out our video with helpful tips!
Collect questionnaire insights with UXtweak
By the way, with UXtweak, you can include post-study questionnaires in any of your usability testing studies. Just copy questions from the chosen standardized usability questionnaire into the setup and you’re ready to go.
Haven’t tried UXtweak before? Then sign up today – it’s free!
