How open-ended questions work
The respondent types an answer in a text box. There are no fixed choices, so the answer can include details you did not expect.
Examples:
- "What is the main reason for your score?"
- "What almost stopped you from signing up?"
- "What should we improve first?"
Open-ended vs closed-ended questions
Closed-ended questions give you numbers that are easy to count. Open-ended questions give you reasons and new ideas, but they take longer to answer and to analyze. Many good surveys pair them: a rating, then "Why did you give that rating?".Tips for writing them
- Ask about one thing at a time.
- Use neutral words, so you do not suggest an answer.
- Make the question specific. "What could we improve about checkout?" gets better answers than "Any comments?".
Open-ended questions in FormFlux
Use a long text field for detailed answers and a short text field for one-line answers. Conditional logic can show a follow-up question only to people who gave a low rating.