What are Open-Ended Questions? With Examples

10 min readOct 27, 2020

What type of data are you looking for while conducting User research?

Are you looking for data that can be simply presented in numeric form? or , Are you looking for some in depth, detailed and descriptive information?

Well, the way you ask the question determines the kind of answer you get in return. And Unless you can read the mind of others you cant get answers from them.

While closed ended questions can only give you limited response from people; open ended questions are broad and can bring in a lot of details.

Hence, if you are looking for high value responses and get more information from the person answering your questions then ask Open-ended questions. Open-ended questions are those which requires people to give more thought to the questions and are more than a simple one-word answer. And Closed-ended questions are those which can be answered by a simple “yes” or “no”.

And in this article we will explore

What are Open-Ended Questions?
5 Examples of Open-Ended Questions.
When to Ask Open-ended Questions?
How to Ask Open-Ended Questions?
Why ask Open-Ended Questions?
Open vs Closed Ended Questions.

What are Open Ended Questions?

In simple words, Open-ended questions are those cannot be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Unlike Closed-Ended Question the response to questions is not limited to a set of options; and instead require the respondent to elaborate on their perspective .

Open-ended questions motivates people to incorporate their own information,perspective and point of view and allows you to probe deep into the respondent’s answers while gaining valuable information about the subject at hand.

These questions are subjective which ask a lot of ‘Why’ ‘How’ ‘Where’ ‘When’ etc, that requires an explanation from respondents in their own words which ultimately help you see things from a customer’s perspective instead of stock answers.

Open-ended questions are often used in Qualitative Market Research which is an exploratory form of the research where the researcher gets to ask questions directly from the participants which helps them to probe on user behavior.

Infact Open-ended questions are often asked in Job interviews and during counseling sessions to understand the respondent’s state of mind. The responses are ultimately used to attain detailed and descriptive information on a topic.

5 Examples of Open Ended Questions.

Now that you have understood what are Open-ended question. Lets understand more with the help of some examples

1. How can we make this Product/Service better?

Remember when you last went out for vacation at you favorite hotel and while checking out, the restaurant manager gave you a page to rate their services and asked this question in the end.

This is one of the most common yet important question that is often asked by the users of a product/service. Crisp and to the point, the question leaves the door wide open for the respondents for multidimensional answers that you may not have even thought of.

There is always room for improvement, and by asking for improvements directly from those who have used your product/service would uncover lot of suggestions and improvements that will ultimately lead to a great User Experience.

2. What goals would you like to accomplish?

Want Customers Fall in Love with Your Business then ask them what are their goals that they want to accomplish while using your Product/service.

See unless a Product/service solves the user problem and helps them accomplish their goal they are unlikely to buy it. Why not hear about the Goals the user wants to accomplish directly from them, in context with the product/service.

3. Tell me about your experience.

A Successful business is based on the overall user experience that they provide to the customer when they use your product/service. Asking them about their experiences would give you the opportunity to learn about the good as well as bad aspects.

If customer had a good experience, you can directly use their verbatim in your marketing campaign. However, if they had bad experience then you can use that information to bring improvements.

4. What challenges or issues you face while using product/service?

Finding out the challenges, issues, problems that customers face while using your product/service will help you address them in further product development. Though the question might sounds simple to you however you’ll be surprised by the answers which would enlighten you with various aspects of your product.

It is also important to stay unbiased while hearing the response from respondents. What might be challenging for them might not be for you and vice versa. Hence, dont quantify the response.

5. Tell me something about yourself.

The world runs through networking and building good relationships. You can get your work done through it.

So, in order to get a quality and insightful interview, make sure that interviewee feel comfortable with you.
And it is not even hard.

When you are conducting Qualitative Research or infact even taking a job interview then always ask them ice-breakers questions like ‘Tell me something about yourself’.

When to ask Open Ended Questions

1. Qualitative Research

Qualitative research process relies on open ended questioning which requires the respondent to elaborate on their perspective and you get feedback in their own words.

Moreover, this also helps the researcher get emotional responses which is usable in understanding why people make the choices they do and what influences their behavior?

Infact it allows you to Explore problems customers encounter. Speaking to Respondents directly help to disclose their experiences, thoughts and feelings without constraint . Furthermore, it would help you to define user problem and make sense out of it.

2. Usability Testing

Usability testing helps the Design and Development Teams to identify problems in the early stages. Identification of Usability Problems in the early stages allows the Design Team to fix the problems at much cheaper cost and in less amount of time without effecting the Launch Schedule.

It has four different stages — screening, pre-test, test, and post-test. This gives the moderator plenty of opportunity to collect important data from participants which includes collection of lot of qualitative information on their background/previous experiences related to the product being tested.

3. In combination with Closed-ended questions

Closed-ended questions ends with conclusions, as it tries to quantify a problem and gives results in numeric form. Use closed- ended questions when you are for example validating or choosing a design based on user satisfaction scores and/or task performance.

And when you want to explore ideas, designs, or get in-depth insights and are not looking for a structured and statistical result.

However, combining the questions together in your research/survey will certainly bring lot of benefits and enrich you with User Feedback. For example, Starting with User Interview and finishing it with a Survey.

4. Job Interviews

Open ended questions are used for conducting job interviews. It includes lot of open ended questions which involves the candidate share their perspectives, experience and infact knowledge in the field they have applied for.

For example, An interview question could be ‘Tell us about yourself’ , ‘How was your past work experience’ , ‘What do you think about the latest technology that has been brought into the Industry’

As a requirement, Open ended questions demand the candidate demonstrate their ability to communicate effectively on lot of aspects which helps the Interview Panel decide on the capability of the Candidate for the Job Position.

How to Ask Open-Ended Questions?

OK! Its story time now.

Lets suppose you went for dinner at this Wonder-full but over priced restaurant on the weekend. Food and ambiance was good but the quantity of Food portion was too small, infact the service was very slow which made you have mixed feelings about spending exorbitant money for dinner .

By the end of the dinner, the restaurant manager comes to you for light chit chat and asks “Did you a have good experience with us?”

Well arent you obliged to answer it with only ‘yes’ or ‘no’. See, this is a closed-ended question since you can only answer “yes” or “no.” And while it’s apparent that the ambiance and food was good, however what about the less quantity of food portion and slow service that irked you. Maybe the manager is just being courteous here and dint really need your viewpoint.

On the other hand, what if the hotel manager asked,”How was your experience of dining with us today” .

Bingo! Weren’t you looking for the right opportunity to discuss your mixed feelings with the hotel manager about dinning in today.

In addition, it just opened up a conversation with both parties discussing how the Dine-in experience could become better. This infact, might make you feel light hearted after sharing the good and bad experience that you just had .

With this lets understand How to ask Open-Ended Questions

1. Stay Curious and ask

Curiosity is the urge to learn and acquire facts and knowledge. Staying curious widens your horizons and opens you up to different opinions, suggestions, possibilities topics.

Most of the breakthrough discoveries and inventions throughout history are the result of curiosity. The intrinsic impulse to explore possibilities and seek improvements is a basic human attribute.

Staying curious widens your horizons and widens your horizons and If you are genuinely curious about what the other person is thinking, open-ended questions will serve you well. Ask a lot of ‘What’ , ‘Why’ , ‘How’ .

Stay away from ‘Do/did’ ‘would’ ‘can’ ‘will’ , they are going to be closed-ended, as in

Did you like the lunch?
Would you buy that bag?
Can we go for shopping?

2. Start with close-ended question and follow up with open ended

It’s not that you should never ask closed questions, they are important while collecting specific information like Where are you from? What do you live? .

However, if you are looking for getting detailed information on certain topics or looking for exploring User behavior then begin by closed questions and move towards open ones that seek to clarify and expand on the things they tell you.

Lets take an example to start a brief conversation with someone

Where are you from? ->How long have you been living there? -> How was your life while growing up? ->Where do you live now? -> Tell me about your family? ->How do you manage living alone all by yourself?

3. Start a conversation

Open-ended questions are designed to start a conversation with people.

If you want to become their trusted advisors then Make sure you actively listen to the answers and build rapport with them. Some of the best ways to do it by starting like

What was it like to…
How did you feel …
Why you didnt…
What are your major concerns…
What was the best part of…

The beauty of asking Open-ended questions here is that If the other person gives another cut down response, you can say something like, “What else? I really want to know.” Everyone wants to talk about themselves and are looking for little nudge from others .

However, if they remain reticent, then respect their privacy and dont force them.

Do’s and Dont’s

Why use open-ended questions?

1 — Open-ended questions are less biased

Open-ended questions reveals abundant and unbiased information as they give the respondents opportunity to answer whatever they like, without limiting or influencing them with predefined answers.

Closed-ended question limits the view point and many a times available options doesn’t reflect the viewpoint. Infact, You end up finding what you are looking for, without learning what the respondents actually think.

However, Asking open-ended questions opens you up to new ideas and unanticipated answers without creating bias in any way. These questions are often more appreciative by the respondents as users aren’t expected to just “fill” them out for the sake of it.

2 — Helps you get clarity in perceptions

Open–ended questions require the respondent to elaborate on their perspective and you get feedback in their own words. This helps the researcher get emotional responses which is usable in understanding why people make the choices they do and what influences their behavior?

Moreover, as the answers spontaneous it helps in evaluating and measuring the perceptions and awareness of brand or product awareness. Additionally, the responses captured can be used as marketing tips for improving the branding of the organization and customer perception.

3. Open Ended Questions makes the Survey Dynamic

An open-ended question breaks the monotony of a series of closed-ended questions by asking questions which interests the respondents and creates a surprise element. The questions requires the respondents to think before answering which dispels their automatic reflexes

All of this makes the customer survey more dynamic as you follow different tangents while approaching the survey.

4. Leads to Improved interactions

People need a platform to voice their opinions about feelings, attitudes, views ; and open ended questions give that platform and make customers feel valued. Thus by letting them know that their personal opinion is important, customers feel happy and feel connected

Open-ended questions not only offer the freedom to respondents to respond the way but also give them the platform to be vocal about their opinion. All of this information is very insightful for organizations.

Not just that, this helps you to Understand your clientele better and learn from your respondents while improving interactions with them.,

To Conclude

Open-Ended questions are not rigid and you dont have to follow a specific pattern of questioning, data collection, and information reporting. Hence, it lets you to lets you understand and learn the full story behind decisions of people and help make improvements.

It is important to keep in mind that open-ended questions leads to subjective answers which are often difficult to interpret. In fact, categorizing the answers in categories is in itself a big task in statistics which is particularly time consuming.

Hence, before designing a survey you need to have clarity as to what your objective is and evaluate the positives and negatives of using an open or closed ended questions.

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