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40 website redesign survey questions you need to ask users to improve UX
Directly asking users for their opinions before redesigning your site helps you gather relevant, unbiased feedback, so you can learn what they like and dislike about the current version and make changes to improve their experience.
After all, who knows what your users truly desire better than they do?
This article gives you a list of 40 questions to ask your users throughout the redesign process, including real examples and tips on how to use Hotjar’s AI technology to build and share your first (or next) survey.
Create user-centric surveys faster with Hotjar AI 🔥
Use Hotjar AI to build and place surveys on your site or send them via email, so you can learn how users truly feel, improve their experience, and grow your business.
Types of questions to ask users (and yourself) before planning a website redesign
A customer-centric website redesign process involves hearing directly from users to deeply understand what they want, why, and the barriers keeping them from getting it.
Although conversion rates are useful for understanding how well your site is doing, they don't tell you the whole story of how users truly feel and whether they're satisfied. If you redesign your site without first asking users the right questions, your team might make changes that don't align with their needs and lose more customers in the process.
Direct user feedback helps you see specific pain points your users are experiencing while on your site, so you can proactively address them during the redesign. If you skip hearing from users while redesigning your site, you risk building products that fail to hit the mark and your efforts won’t amount to any significant change in your conversion rate.
There are two types of questions to ask users before and during your redesign process: open- and closed-ended questions.
Using both types of questions in your research gives you a complete picture of your site’s user experience (UX). Close-ended questions offer numerical data, letting you spot trends, while open-ended questions provide qualitative insights to help you understand the why behind the numbers.
These insights help you find what’s working, what isn’t, and what your ideal customers want, so you can make your site more user-friendly and increase website conversions.
💡 Pro tip: before you start redesigning (or refreshing) your site, you need to answer these questions about your current website and customers:
Who’s visiting your website, and why? Understand your users’ priorities and create a more relevant and engaging experience for them.
What are your most valuable pages right now? Identify pages that drive the most traffic, engagement, and conversions for your business.
What elements are working well? Find the specific design elements or content sections on these pages that drive website visitors to take desired actions.
What specific, measurable customer need is your current website unable to meet? Spot the main barriers keeping users from converting.
What’s the rest of your ideal user’s team or business using the website for? Identify additional use cases or reasons people visit your site.
How will you measure the success of your redesign? Identify key performance metrics to determine whether or not you succeeded.
40 website redesign survey questions to ask users
There are four stages of the website redesign process:
Discovery phase: find your site’s strengths and weaknesses, and understand how users interact with it
Strategy phase: determine what your new site would look like based on user data
Design and development phase: create visual elements and coding of the new site
Testing and iteration phase: ensure your new site resonates with your users
Getting user feedback at every stage helps you spot potential issues early on, so you can make changes before they become hard and costly to fix, which could otherwise cause you to lose customers.
Below we put together a list of 40 open- and closed-ended questions to ask users at each stage of the redesign process you can tailor to your business. Let’s dive in!
10 questions to ask in the discovery phase
The discovery phase is where you gather data and insights about your existing website, so you can see what's working and what isn't and make changes to increase customer delight.
When to ask them: ask users who have interacted with your site at least once to find out who visits your site and why, what frustrates or delights them, and other websites they use.
Here are ten pairs of closed- and open-ended questions to ask:
How often do you use our website? / What are your main goals while using it?
How often do you visit similar websites? / Could you name one or two of these sites and explain what you like about them?
How easy is it to find the information you need on our current website? / What challenges did you face trying to find information on our site?
How satisfied are you with the website's current layout and navigation? / What’s the reason for your score?
How likely are you to recommend our website to others? / Why?
Which features do you wish we had? / Can you provide examples of any websites with these features?
Have you made a purchase on our website? / What drove you to make (or stopped you from making) a purchase on our website?
Do you find our search feature useful? / How do you recommend we improve it?
How satisfied are you with our site’s speed? / What’s the reason for your score?
Which device do you primarily use to access our website? / Can you describe any difficulties you encountered while accessing our site on different devices?
💡 Pro tip: use Hotjar’s on-site surveys and session recordings to capture in-the-moment feedback from users while they browse your site.
The Transport Library, an ecommerce store that sells rail and bus images, wanted to increase sales, so they came to NerdCow for help. Tomasz Lisiecki, founder of the web design agency, used both tools to improve add-to-cart and conversion rates.
Session recordings helped the team discover how people struggled to use the search bar to find what they needed and how they scrolled for hours without visiting the product pages.
On-site surveys, on the other hand, gave Tomasz additional context to understand the reason behind user behavior on different pages.
Combining insights from session recordings and survey responses helped the team make three quick changes that delivered user-centric results for The Transport Library:
A simplified search bar so the site’s non-technical user base could find what they were looking for quickly
On-page graphics like badges, so users could swiftly spot which products were new and which ones they’d already viewed
Abandoned cart emails and site notifications to nudge users toward converting
These updates nearly tripled the site’s conversions in two weeks!
10 questions to ask in the strategy phase
The strategy phase is where you establish the plan and direction for the redesign to ensure it aligns with your goal to improve your site’s UX.
When to ask them: use these surveys to understand your users' main goals, the pain points they experience, and which types of website content, design, and features they find most valuable.
Here are ten pairs of closed- and open-ended questions to ask in this phase:
What is the primary goal you plan to achieve on our website? / Can you elaborate on the specific outcomes you expect from achieving this goal?
How would you rate your familiarity with the services we provide? (Novice to Expert) / Can you provide examples of areas where you feel less knowledgeable?
How frequently do you engage with content on our blog? / What types of content are most appealing to you?
Which other websites do you trust for industry-related information? / Why do you find these sources trustworthy?
How likely are you to engage with long-form content such as articles or reports? / How can we make them more appealing to you?
Which social media platforms do you use for professional networking? / How do you think we can leverage these platforms to better connect with our audience?
Are there sections of our website you find most valuable and engaging? / Can you share them and tell us one thing that makes these pages resonate with you?
Are there missing features or content you think would improve your experience on our site? / Can you share them with us?
What are the main challenges you face when using our current site? / Can you share an example of a frustrating experience you’ve had on our site recently?
How well does our current website align with your expectations regarding our brand and offerings? / Are there any specific improvements you'd like to see?
10 questions to ask in the design and development phase
The design and development stage is where you collect valuable insights about various aspects of your website, such as the UX design, layout, and functionality, to create a website that aligns better with what your users need.
When to ask them: survey users after you've created the initial designs for your new site to hear what they think or how they feel about the new layout and functionality (you can do this with a concept testing survey!), so you make changes users truly care about and ensure the final product meets their needs.
Here are ten pairs of closed- and open-ended questions to ask here:
On a scale of 1–10, how visually appealing do you find our new site? / How can we improve?
Do you find the navigation menu layout intuitive and easy to use? / How can we make it more user-friendly?
Are the call-to-action (CTA) buttons clear and compelling? / What can we do to improve them?
How satisfied are you with the website's overall responsiveness and speed? / What’s your reason for the score?
Did you experience technical errors while on our site? / Could you share a recent experience?
How well does the new design align with our brand identity and value proposition? / Is there anything you’d like us to change or adjust?
Are you able to easily share content from our website on social media platforms? / What can we do to make the process easier?
Is the new font size and style easy for you to read? / Do you have any suggestions for improving the typography?
How well does the new design guide your attention to important content? / Can you provide examples of design elements that grabbed your attention and why?
Have you encountered any broken links while using our website recently? / Can you elaborate so we can fix it right away?
💡Pro tip: pair Hotjar Surveys with Heatmaps to figure out what’s preventing customers from buying.
ClickMechanic, a UK-based auto repair marketplace, used both tools to redesign its website and improve conversions. They asked users, “What ONE thing is stopping you from booking with us?”
Adjusting their pricing boosted revenue by 60% in just two months, and allowing customers to see who the mechanic was prior to booking increased conversions by 10%.
With heatmaps, the team discovered many of its landing page visitors never scrolled beyond the hero (the main image on the homepage), so they focused all their redesign above the fold.
This approach helped ClickMechanic save money on design and engineering and delivered an additional 15% increase in conversions.
10 questions to ask in the testing and iteration phase
The testing and iteration phase is where you gather feedback and fix any bugs before launching the new design. You test how different parts of the website work and fix anything that isn't working correctly.
When to ask them: survey users before you finalize the changes to fix any issues and ensure your new website works well and resonates with your users.
Here are ten pairs of closed- and open-ended questions to ask:
Is the new signup process smooth and straightforward? / What issues did you encounter?
How likely are you to return to our website based on your current experience? / Why?
How easy is it for you to find the information you need on the new site? / How can we improve?
How responsive is our new website? / What can we do to improve your experience?
Do you find the interactive elements (buttons, links, forms) easy to use? / Which did you find confusing or frustrating and why?
How well does the website help you complete tasks? / How can we make the process smoother for you?
How well does the website work on different devices? / How can we improve?
How happy are you with the accessibility features for users with disabilities? / How can we improve?
Have you noticed any changes since the last time you visited our site? / What stood out most to you?
How confident are you in the accuracy of search results on the redesigned website? / Can you recall instances where search results were accurate or inaccurate for your queries?
💡 Pro tip: use Hotjar’s concept testing to add images to surveys and find out what users like about your new site, spot potential problems before they become major issues, and launch a site they’ll love.
For example, if you're redesigning your ecommerce site’s homepage, you can develop two different concepts for the page and ensure both designs reflect key changes you're considering—layout, color scheme, product placement, and navigation—then use Hotjar Surveys to hear what users think about each version before deciding.
While building your survey on Hotjar, add images to key questions so users have the context they need to provide useful feedback
Set up these surveys on your high-traffic pages and ensure they run simultaneously, so you can collect feedback from users experiencing both designs.
Once you've gathered a significant number of responses, look for patterns in the responses, such as common likes, dislikes, or suggestions, so you can confidently pick the design that delights your users and increase conversions.
Use Hotjar AI to create user-centric survey questions
So there you have it: 40 questions to help you gather unbiased user feedback, base your decisions on solid data, and increase your conversion rates.
You can also come up with your own user-centric close- and open-ended survey question pairs using Hotjar AI. The tool automates the creation process, so you’ll spend less time brainstorming and more time analyzing the results and making changes users actually want.
Once you have your questions ready, you can email the survey to users or set up triggers at different stages of the customer journey on your site to start gathering useful insights.
Create user-centric surveys faster with AI 🔥
Use AI in Hotjar Surveys to build your survey and launch it on your site to learn how users truly feel, improve their experience, and grow your business.
