Usability Testing Questions: Copyable Lists by Stage

Usability testing questions are the prompts you use before, during and after a usability test to recruit the right people, set context, guide tasks and understand what participants experienced. Good ones are neutral, specific and open. They ask people to show you or tell you about what happened, rather than inviting them to agree with you or predict what they would do.

Below are copyable question lists for each stage of a test, plus advice on avoiding leading questions. Copy what you need and adapt the wording to your product.

The five stages of usability testing questions

A typical session has five points where you ask questions:

Keep the total short. A 45-minute moderated session has room for three to five tasks, and every extra question takes time away from watching.

Screening questions

Screening questions filter participants so you test with people who match your audience. They go in a recruitment form or a short call. The rule: don't reveal what you are looking for, or people will tell you what you want to hear.

Copyable screening questions

1. Which of these best describes your current role?
   [list of roles, including several you do not want, plus "Other"]

2. How many people work at your organisation?
   [1 / 2-10 / 11-50 / 51-200 / 201-1,000 / 1,000+]

3. In the last 6 months, which of the following have you done?
   (Select all that apply)
   [mix of target behaviour and distractors]

4. Which of these tools have you used in the last 3 months?
   (Select all that apply)
   [competitors, adjacent tools, distractors, "None of these"]

5. How often do you [target activity]?
   [Daily / Weekly / Monthly / Less than monthly / Never]

6. Who is involved in choosing [type of product] at your organisation?
   [I decide alone / I recommend, someone else approves / I am not involved]

7. Have you taken part in a usability study or user interview in the last 6 months?
   [Yes / No]

8. Do you work in, or have close friends or family who work in, any of these industries?
   [UX / market research / software development / marketing / none]

9. Do you use any assistive technology when browsing?
   [screen reader / magnification / voice control / keyboard only / none / prefer not to say]

Tips for screeners

• Use multiple choice with distractors. "Do you manage a budget?" invites a yes. A list of responsibilities where budget ownership is one option does not.
• Ask about past behaviour, not identity. "How many times have you booked a flight online in the past year?" beats "Are you a frequent traveller?"
• Exclude professional testers and industry insiders. Questions 7 and 8 catch people who know how tests work.
• Include people with disabilities. Question 9 helps you recruit them deliberately.

Pre-test questions

Pre-test questions warm the participant up and give you context for interpreting their behaviour. Keep them to about five minutes.

Copyable pre-test questions

1. Can you tell me a little about your role and what a typical week looks like?

2. How do you currently handle [the problem your product solves]?

3. Tell me about the last time you [relevant activity]. What happened?

4. What tools or websites do you use for that today?

5. What do you like about how you do it now? What frustrates you?

6. Have you heard of [product] before today? If so, what do you know about it?

Before the first question: the intro script

Say something like this, in your own words:

Thanks for joining. We're testing the website, not you, so there are no wrong answers. If something is confusing, that's useful for us to know. Please think aloud as you go: tell me what you're looking at, what you expect, and what you're trying to do. I may not answer questions during tasks, because I want to see what you'd do on your own. You can stop at any time.

Asking participants to think aloud is the core of the think-aloud protocol, the standard way to hear people's reasoning as they work.

Task questions

The task prompt is the most important question in the session. It sets a realistic goal without telling people how to achieve it. Write tasks as scenarios with a motivation and an end point, and avoid using the exact words that appear on your interface.

For a full guide to writing tasks, with good and bad examples across SaaS, ecommerce and mobile, see usability testing scenarios.

Copyable task prompts

Findability
- "You've heard about this product from a colleague and want to know
  roughly what it would cost for a team of five. Find that out."

- "You want to check whether this works with the tools you already use.
  See what you can find out."

Understanding
- "Take a minute to look at this page. Then tell me, in your own words,
  what this company does and who it's for."

Completing an action
- "You've decided to try it. Get yourself to the point where you could
  start using it."

- "You bought something last week and want to return it.
  Show me how you'd go about that."

Comparison and decision
- "You need to recommend one plan to your manager.
  Decide which one, and tell me why."

Recovery
- "You've forgotten your password. Get back into your account."

Neutral probes during tasks

When you need to understand what someone is doing, use short, open probes. Don't explain the interface or hint at the answer.

- "What are you thinking right now?"
- "What are you looking for?"
- "What do you expect to happen if you click that?"
- "Is that what you expected?"
- "Tell me more about that."
- "What would you do next if I weren't here?"
- "You paused there. What was going through your mind?"
- "Where would you expect to find that?"

If a participant asks you a question ("Should I click here?"), turn it back: "What would you do if you were on your own?"

Post-task questions

Ask these immediately after each task, while the experience is fresh. Mix one quick rating with one or two open questions.

Copyable post-task questions

1. How did that go?

2. Was there anything that surprised you?

3. Was there anything you expected to see that wasn't there?

4. What, if anything, made that harder than it needed to be?

5. If you could change one thing about that, what would it be?

6. On a scale of 1 to 7, how easy or difficult was that task?
   (1 = very difficult, 7 = very easy)

7. How confident are you that you completed the task correctly?
   (1 = not at all confident, 7 = very confident)

Question 6 is the Single Ease Question (SEQ), a widely used one-item rating that lets you compare tasks. Question 7 matters because a confident wrong answer is a serious finding.

Post-test questions

At the end of the session, step back and ask about the whole experience. This is where you capture overall impressions, comparisons and anything people held back during tasks.

Copyable post-test questions

1. Overall, how would you describe your experience today?

2. What stood out to you, positively or negatively?

3. What was the most confusing or frustrating part?

4. In one sentence, how would you describe this product to a colleague?

5. How does this compare with how you handle [activity] today?

6. What, if anything, would stop you from using this?

7. What questions do you still have that the site didn't answer?

8. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us that we haven't asked about?

Standardised questionnaires

For a score you can compare over time, use an established questionnaire. The System Usability Scale (SUS) is the most common: ten statements rated on a five-point agreement scale, converted to a score from 0 to 100. Keep the original wording, or you lose comparability.

How to avoid leading usability testing questions

Leading questions nudge participants towards an answer, and because people want to be helpful, they follow.

Leading vs neutral: quick reference

Rules of thumb

• Don't name interface elements in tasks. If the menu says "Plans", don't ask people to "find the plans". Ask about the goal instead.
• Ask open questions first. "What did you think?" before "Did you like the colours?"
• Avoid "would you" questions about the future. People are poor at predicting their own behaviour. Ask about what they did, or watch what they do.
• Ask one thing at a time. "Was that clear and quick?" is two questions.
• Get comfortable with silence. People often add the most useful detail after a pause.
• Watch more than you listen. If someone says the task was easy after three wrong turns, record both, and give more weight to the behaviour.

Moderated vs unmoderated: adjusting your questions

In a moderated test you can probe in the moment, so prepare tasks, a few post-task questions and your list of neutral probes. In an unmoderated test nobody can clarify, so give every task a clear end point ("When you've found it, click Done"), use a rating plus one open text box per task, and pilot with a colleague first. For more on choosing between the two, see website usability testing.

A ready-to-use session outline

Copy this for a 45-minute moderated session:

0-5 min    Intro script, consent, think-aloud explanation
5-10 min   Pre-test questions (3-4)
10-35 min  3-4 tasks, each followed by 2-3 post-task questions
35-42 min  Post-test questions (4-5), optional SUS
42-45 min  Thank you, incentive details, next steps

Run five or so sessions per round. Jakob Nielsen's widely cited guidance is that around five participants per round reveals most of the common problems for that round, and that several small rounds with fixes in between work better than one large study.

Testing before you recruit

Recruiting and running sessions takes time. If you want an early read on a live website first, Phanera has AI personas with different goals and levels of patience attempt tasks like "find pricing" in a real browser, and returns prioritised findings with session replays and each persona's reasoning. It surfaces findability and clarity problems quickly, so sessions with real people can focus on deeper questions. It can't answer the pre-test or post-test questions here, which are about real people's context, feelings and decisions. For those, you still need to talk to users. AI usability testing explains the trade-offs.

FAQ

What are good usability testing questions?

Good usability testing questions are open, neutral and about specific behaviour. "How was that?" and "What did you expect to happen?" are good. "Was that easy?" and "Would you use this?" are leading or speculative.

How many questions should a usability test have?

For a 45-minute session, aim for 3 to 6 pre-test questions, 3 to 5 tasks with 2 to 4 post-task questions each, and 4 to 8 post-test questions. Fewer, better questions leave more time for observation.

What is the difference between a task and a question in usability testing?

A task asks the participant to do something, such as "Find out what it would cost for a team of five." A question asks them to reflect or explain, such as "What made that difficult?" Tasks produce behaviour; questions help you understand it.

Should I ask participants to rate tasks?

Yes, briefly. A single rating such as the Single Ease Question after each task lets you compare tasks and track changes over time. Always pair it with an open question, since the rating alone does not tell you what went wrong.

How do I stop myself asking leading questions?

Write your questions in advance, check each one against the leading vs neutral table above, and pilot the script with a colleague. During sessions, fall back on a short list of neutral probes such as "Tell me more about that."