12 Essential Survey Questions Types: Complete Guide to Maximize Response Quality

Ever stared at a blank survey form wondering “What kind of question should I ask to actually get useful answers?” Well, that happens a lot more than you think. Whether you're running a quick feedback poll or conducting in-depth market research, the way you ask questions can make or break your results.

Should you go with a multiple-choice question? A rating scale? Or throw in a few open-ended ones to hear your audience in their own words? The truth is, picking the right type of question is all about strategic thinking.

It all stems from one thing, clarity. Clarity on what you really want to know from your respondents? What insights are you hoping to walk away with? Once you’re clear on that, choosing the right question format to conduct a successful survey becomes much simpler and much more effective.

In this guide, we’ll break down the 12 essential types of survey questions—what they are, when to use them, and how they help you gather the information you actually need. Plus, we’ll give you real-world examples you can plug into your next survey right away.

Because better questions lead to better answers and better answers drive better decisions.

Want to use AI to write your survey questions?

AI is everywhere and yes, it’s revolutionizing the way we build surveys too. Tools like SurveySparrow are offering a dedicated AI feature to help you come up with survey questions in a matter of seconds.  Whether you're short on time, feeling uninspired, or simply want to streamline your process, AI has your back.

It makes it super-easy to ask a variety of survey questions with its AI-powered survey maker and 1000+ survey templates. Here's how: 

1. With pre-built templates for various industries (like customer satisfaction, employee feedback, market research), you can easily choose the one that fits your needs.
2. Creating questions can sometimes be difficult, especially if you're tired and if there’s no creative juice flowing. So whatever question type you have, you can easily create it using the AI survey feature from SurveySparrow. 

Our Wings AI automatically suggests the best types of questions based on your goals, whether it's multiple-choice, rating scales, open-ended, or NPS. 

Pretty cool, right?

Sign up below to use our AI survey maker for free. Get started.

Now, let's explore the types of survey questions!

12 Types of Survey Questions

There are 12 different types of survey questions you can use, they are as follows. 

1. Multiple Choice Questions
2. Opinion Scale Questions
3. Likert Scale Questions
4. Rank Order Questions
5. Dichotomous Questions
6. Rating Questions
7. Slider Questions
8. Demographic and Firmographic Questions
9. Open-Ended Questions
10. Dropdown Questions
11. Matrix Questions
12. Picture Choice Questions

Let's discuss each in detail.

1. Multiple Choice Questions

This is the most popular type of survey question to ask your audience. You provide respondents with a list of answer options, and they will get to choose one or more options from this list.

Typically, you’d want your respondents to pick only one option. This kind of multiple-choice question is called a single-answer multiple-choice question.

However, in some cases, you might want them to give you multiple answers. This kind of question is called a multi-answer multiple choice question.

Since you already provide them with all the options, this type of survey question is easier to answer. Also, the data you collect with this kind of question is easier to analyze.

There might be cases when all your predefined answers might not apply to your respondents. In that case, you can add an “other” answer option at the end of your list to be on the safer side.

This “other” option, when clicked, opens up a text field that the respondent can use to give you an answer in their own words.

2. Opinion Scale Questions

An opinion scale survey question provides respondents with a scale of numbers as answer options. These options range from 1 to 10, 0 to 100, 1 to 5, etc.

Example of a survey question of an opinion scale question is an NPS question. NPS is an essential survey question that lets you check your customers’ pulse and sentiments about your products/services. An NPS question helps you measure your customers’ willingness to recommend your product or service to their friends or colleagues.

You simply ask: “How likely are you to recommend us to your friends or colleagues?” and provide them with a numerical rating scale that ranges from 0 to 10. Here’s an NPS survey question example.

Want to roll out NPS surveys with ease? SurveySparrow‘s NPS survey software is designed to help you decode customer sentiments with ease. 

Moreover, you can compare your score with our NPS benchmarking tool to get a sense of where you stand. Create your account below to try SurveySparrow for free.

One thing to keep in mind is that it ain’t enough to just display a set of numbers. You also need to explain the value of the numbers that you ask them to choose.

For instance, if you ask them, “How much do you like noodles?” and you use a numerical scale of 1 to 10, you need to explain to them, preferably with short labels, that 10 means they absolutely love them while 1 means they absolutely hate them.

3. Likert Scale Questions

It’s likely you’ve seen a Likert scale question before. Remember those “do you agree or disagree” questions you answered the last time you took a survey?

You probably “strongly agreed/disagreed” or “neither agreed nor disagreed” with a survey question. That’s a Likert scale survey question!

This kind of question is a reliable survey question to ask your respondents to measure their attitudes, perceptions, and opinions about a certain topic. Here’s a Likert scale survey question example:

4. Rank Order Questions

A rank-order question provides your respondents with a list of answer options. This survey question type allows them to compare the options and rank them in order of priority, importance, or value.

This survey question type is quite different from a rating question; it asks you to rank one option against another option. With this question, you’ll be able to understand the relative importance of each option.

Only, use this survey question sparingly, as they take more time to answer.

5. Dichotomous Questions (Yes/No Questions)

A dichotomous question (or a yes or no question) requires only two possible answers from your survey respondents: yes/no, agree/disagree, or true/false.

This survey question type is typically used to easily filter out (or screen out) the respondents who don’t fit the research criteria. Also, you can use these questions to segment your respondents into different groups.

While you could use a simple multiple-choice survey question to get a yes or no from your audience, a dichotomous question provides answer options that come with appropriate icons, these icons serve as a visual cue and help your respondents quickly provide accurate answers. 

Here’s a Yes/No survey question example with icons.

6. Rating Questions

Rating scale survey questions allow your survey respondents to quickly rate something on a scale of 1 to 5. This is often used as a quick survey question to ask your respondents how they feel about a particular thing.

They help you measure your respondents’ opinions and attitudes toward a certain topic.

Quickly find out what they really think about your product, marketing, support, or any other aspect of your business.

SurveySparrow’s survey tool lets you add all kinds of icons and emojis to your rating questions. In other words, you can create rating questions with stars, thumbs, high-voltage emojis, crowns, and smileys. Here are some good survey questions and examples of rating scales.

7. Slider Questions

With a slider question, you ask your survey respondents to evaluate something on a numerical scale. But they pick a number by dragging a slider control.

In some cases, a slider question is fun to answer and makes more sense than other similar kinds of questions.

8. Demographic and Firmographic Questions

You can ask these kinds of questions to gather insights into your target audience.

Demographic questions are asked to collect demographic information such as gender, age, income, location, etc. Here’s a quick demographic survey question example:

Firmographic questions, on the other hand, include those set of survey questions to ask your audience to gather firmographic information related to a business, such as company size, annual revenue, etc.

When you better understand who they are and where they come from, you can segment them, easily analyze data that’s relevant to a particular group, and get better results from your surveys.

9. Open-Ended Questions

Unlike other types of survey questions, open-ended survey questions provide respondents with different predefined answer options. This survey question type provides respondents with a text field so they can give an answer in their own words.

It’s commonly used to gather in-depth, qualitative data on a certain topic. Although you will get a ton of insights this way, you will have a hard time analyzing the data you acquire with this kind of question.

10. Dropdown Questions

If you’ve got a multiple choice question that has a long list of answer options, you can use a dropdown question instead if you wish to not overwhelm your respondents.

All your answer options will be hidden in a dropdown menu. Respondents will have to click on the dropdown button to reveal the list of answers.

That said, there are some cases where displaying all the answers upfront helps provide the information your respondents need to give you an answer quickly.

11. Matrix Questions

Got a bunch of questions that seem to give the same answer options? You need a matrix question. This survey question type is a series of Likert scale questions.

While a matrix question can help you simplify and shorten your surveys, it’s quite difficult to take, especially on a mobile device, and most people find it confusing and hard to answer. That’s when checking out matrix question types can help.

12. Picture Choice Questions

Image choice or picture choice questions are similar to multiple-choice survey questions but allow you to use pictures as answer options.

Typically, picture survey questions are used to get feedback on visuals such as logos or product concepts. You can also use them to make things more engaging and give your audience a break from reading.

Now that you have a clear picture of the types of survey questions that you can use, it's time to start creating your own! Let's get started:

Customer Feedback Survey Template

Preview Template

Use This Template

How Can SurveySparrow Help You?

If you’re eager to try out conversational surveys, SurveySparrow is a great choice. It’s a user-friendly platform that makes surveys interesting and effective, helping you get valuable information for your business decisions.

Here’s why SurveySparrow is a good option:

Use a Mix of Question Types: Variety keeps respondents engaged. SurveySparrow offers a range of question types, including multiple-choice, rating scales, and open-ended questions. This diversity allows you to gather different types of information effectively.

Random Question Generator: If you can’t find the inspiration to construct your own questionnaire, select your desired category and let the tool do the job!

Easy to Use: SurveySparrow makes it simple to create your surveys, making them more interesting and efficient.

Get Better Insights: It allows you to collect detailed and nuanced data, helping you discover insights that you might have missed otherwise.

Smarter Decision-making: The accurate and comprehensive data you gather on the platform enables you to make informed and smarter decisions for your business.

1000+ Templates: You get pre-designed survey templates.

Why not take it for a spin?

Try SurveySparrow for free.

Final Thoughts

We know one thing for sure, the type of survey questions you ask can make or break your results. From multiple-choice to open-ended and everything in between, each question format serves a reason and choosing the right one usually starts with knowing your survey goals. 

There might be a type of survey question that’s better than the one you’ve chosen for the data you need, so think hard before choosing a survey question type.

Looking for some survey question examples? Here are articles from us that can help you with that:

• 12 Product Survey Questions for Insightful Product Feedback
• 6 Employee Pulse Survey Questions You Should Be Asking
• 12 Amazing Customer Support Survey Questions for 2021
• Top Diversity and Inclusion Survey Questions to Ask

Got any questions on picking the right types of survey questions? Any interesting tips or techniques you use to find the right types of survey questions? Let us know about them in the comment section below.

Looking to create surveys that people love to answer? Feel free to check out SurveySparrow