Best questions for citizen survey about city website usability

Here are some of the best questions for a citizen survey about city website usability, plus our top tips for designing effective surveys. We’ve seen how easy it is to build a conversational survey with Specific, so let’s dive right in.

Best open-ended questions for citizen surveys about city website usability

Open-ended questions are gold when you want honest, detailed feedback from citizens. They invite real stories and struggles, so you discover insights no checkbox can catch. These are perfect for uncovering what works, what doesn’t, and why people feel a certain way.

Here are 10 open-ended questions we'd include in a citizen survey about city website usability:

1. What was the main reason you visited the city website today?

2. Can you describe anything that frustrated you during your visit to the city website?

3. Which section or feature on the site did you find most helpful, and why?

4. How would you improve the homepage to help you find what you need?

5. Did you experience any technical issues (like slow loading, broken links, or errors)? Tell us more.

6. What is something you wish you could do on the city website that you can’t do today?

7. How did you search for information, and was it easy or difficult? Why?

8. If you had to help a friend use the city website for the first time, what advice would you give?

9. Describe any challenges you faced when using the site from a mobile device.

10. Share any suggestions that would make the city website more useful to you.

When we use open-ended questions like these, we give citizens a voice—while our AI-powered survey tools make it easy to organize and interpret all those rich responses. And as seen by brands like Marriott and H&M, conversational survey formats can increase response rates dramatically—one Marriott conversational survey achieved a 41% response rate and surfaced actionable improvements[1].

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for city website usability

Single-select multiple-choice questions shine when we need clear data. They're quick for citizens to answer and perfect for when you want to quantify satisfaction or spot patterns. They're often a great first step to “warm up” the conversation before asking deeper follow-up questions.

Question: How easy was it to find the information you needed on the city website?

• Very easy

• Somewhat easy

• Somewhat difficult

• Very difficult

Question: What section did you visit most often?

• Paying bills/taxes

• City news/updates

• Permits or licensing

• Public services (trash, water, etc.)

• Events/calendar

• Other

Question: Which device did you use to access the city website?

• Desktop or laptop

• Tablet

• Mobile phone

When to follow up with “why?” Sometimes, after a citizen selects an answer, we want to dig deeper. For example, if they answer “Somewhat difficult” to finding information, a quick “Could you tell us why it felt difficult?” opens the door to the context we really need to improve. This is where conversational surveys—with dynamic AI follow-ups—really shine.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? “Other” gives respondents room to share something we didn’t foresee. Follow-up questions (for example “Which other section did you use?”) often uncover unexpected patterns or needs we’d otherwise miss.

NPS survey for city website usability

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a proven way to gauge how likely citizens are to recommend the city website to others. We often see NPS used in public sector digital initiatives because it provides a quick, comparable metric for overall user sentiment. For city website usability, this one question—“How likely are you to recommend the city website to a friend or neighbor?” (scored 0–10)—cuts straight to the heart of citizen satisfaction. NPS is especially effective when paired with a conversational follow-up of “why did you give that score?” to unravel deeper reasoning.

If you want to automate this process, you can use Specific’s NPS survey template for city website usability, and all the feedback will be ready for easy analysis.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are the secret ingredient of conversational surveys. Instead of stopping at surface-level answers, the survey becomes a fluid back-and-forth that uncovers the genuine “why” behind responses. Learn more about automatic AI-powered follow-up questions and how they elevate traditional surveys.

• Citizen: "The website was fine, but I had some trouble with payments."

• AI follow-up: "Can you share more details about what made the payment process difficult or confusing?"

Without this follow-up, we’d miss exactly what’s broken in the payments section.

How many follow-ups to ask? Two or three well-placed follow-up questions are usually enough. It’s best to let respondents move on once the needed information is collected—Specific even lets you set when to skip ahead, so no one feels interrogated.

This makes it a conversational survey. Respondents feel heard, engaged, and more likely to share specific, actionable feedback.

AI survey response analysis. With AI, it’s easy to analyze all this unstructured feedback. You don’t need to read every word—our tools summarize and surface trends for you, so you get the insights you need fast.

Conversational, AI-driven follow-ups are a fresh approach—try generating a survey and watch how it changes the quality of your findings.

How to prompt GPT to generate great survey questions

If you want GPT or other AI tools to craft your city website usability survey questions, here’s how to do it:

Start with a prompt like:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for citizen survey about city website usability.

The more context you add—about your city, your goals, your target group—the sharper the results. For example:

We're a mid-size city aiming to make our website more user-friendly for older adults and people with accessibility needs. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to discover what frustrates or delights users when navigating our city’s website.

Next, ask GPT to group questions for you:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Then, zero in on the categories that matter most (for example, “usability,” “mobile experience,” or “information findability”) and run:

Generate 10 questions for categories usability, mobile experience, and information findability.

That’s how you guide the AI to create high-impact, tailored survey questions every time. Or you can skip the back-and-forth and just use our AI survey builder to do all that instantly!

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey closely mimics a friendly chat. Instead of static forms, the respondent answers one question at a time. The AI guides, probes, and even asks relevant follow-ups—resulting in much richer input. These kinds of AI-powered, real-time chat surveys are a leap forward in engaging citizens and making data collection enjoyable, both for you and them.

Here’s a quick comparison:

Why use AI for citizen surveys? AI makes it easy to gather large volumes of feedback, ask tailored questions in real time, and turn loads of open-ended responses into actionable summaries. Real-world use cases (like H&M using chatbot-based surveys for a 70% completion rate) prove that engagement and completion rates soar with conversational formats[1].

If you’re ready to try true conversational surveys, Specific’s step-by-step guide makes setup a breeze. Our survey experience feels just like a natural chat—resulting in more honest responses and richer insight, for both survey creators and everyday citizens.

See this city website usability survey example now

Turn feedback into action—see how conversational surveys unlock deeper, more genuine responses and analysis. Try a real AI-powered survey and feel the difference yourself!