Best questions for api developers survey about api documentation quality

Here are some of the best questions for an API developers survey about API documentation quality, plus key tips on how to create them. With Specific, you can build a robust survey on this topic in seconds—making it easy to gather deep, actionable feedback.

Best open-ended questions for API developers about API documentation quality

Open-ended questions unlock rich, detailed feedback from developers. They’re invaluable when you want real stories about what works (or doesn’t), and to discover pain points you’d never anticipate with simple checkbox surveys. These questions are especially helpful when exploring a complex topic like API documentation quality, where motivations, expectations, and frustrations are often unique to each developer.

Considering that 95.2% of developers say documentation issues hurt productivity [1], it’s crucial to ask questions that allow them to describe the bigger picture.

1. What is your general experience with our API documentation?

2. Can you describe a time when our API documentation helped you solve a problem quickly?

3. What are the most confusing parts of our API documentation?

4. Which topics or examples do you wish were explained in more depth?

5. How could we improve the navigation or search features within our documentation?

6. Are there any common API use cases or workflows that are missing or unclear in our docs?

7. Tell us about a time when poor documentation slowed down your development.

8. How do you usually find answers when our documentation doesn’t explain something?

9. What resources (code samples, SDKs, walkthroughs) would you like to see added?

10. In your opinion, what does excellent API documentation look like?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for API developers about API documentation quality

Single-select multiple-choice questions are great when you need to quantify opinions or identify patterns fast. For busy API developers who may not have time for long written answers, choosing from a short list of options lowers effort—and helps you spot trends at a glance. They can also serve as conversation starters, priming for deeper exploration in follow-up.

Question: How would you rate the overall clarity of our API documentation?

• Excellent

• Good

• Average

• Poor

• Very poor

Question: What’s the first thing you typically look for when opening API documentation?

• Authentication instructions

• Endpoint reference

• Code examples

• Quickstart/Getting started guide

• Troubleshooting/FAQs

• Other

Question: How confident are you that our API documentation covers all critical use cases?

• Very confident

• Somewhat confident

• Not confident

When to follow up with "why?" A well-timed “why” is powerful when you see a surprising, mixed, or negative response. For example, if a developer chooses “Not confident” about use case coverage, a follow-up like “Can you share which use cases were missing or unclear?” uncovers the real gap—giving you specific action items.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? “Other” fuels discovery. Some developers might approach documentation with goals you haven't considered. When someone selects "Other," you can trigger a tailored follow-up: “What else do you usually look for?”—surfacing unexpected priorities and workflow insights.

NPS-style question for API documentation quality feedback

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question—"How likely are you to recommend our API documentation to a colleague?"—is a proven method for quickly gauging user loyalty and satisfaction. For API developers, using an NPS-type question helps you benchmark doc quality over time, and segment developer feedback by promoters, passives, and detractors. It's no surprise that 59% of developers view documentation as the first thing to check with a new API [3]. Understanding their likelihood to recommend it provides clear direction for improvement.

For a quick start, you can generate a ready-to-use NPS survey for API documentation quality using Specific’s survey builder.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions take your API developer surveys from “checkbox exercise” to an engaging conversation. As covered in our deep dive on automatic AI follow-up questions, real-time, context-aware probing is what delivers the richest developer insights. We built this into Specific so our surveys don’t just collect surface-level answers—they act like expert interviews, drilling down where it counts.

This isn’t just a feature: it’s a new approach. Say a developer answers vaguely, like:

• API developer: "Some of the docs were hard to follow."

• AI follow-up: "Could you point out which sections felt unclear, or give an example of where you got stuck?"

Ask that one follow-up, and suddenly you have a roadmap for improvement.

How many followups to ask? In practice, 2–3 targeted follow-ups strike the right balance—deep enough to get specifics, but short enough not to overwhelm your respondents. With Specific, you can even configure when the AI should move on once it collects the context you need.

This makes it a conversational survey: not just a static form, but a real dialogue that draws developers in.

AI survey analysis, AI survey insights: Even though follow-ups generate rich, unstructured feedback, you don’t have to worry about drowning in text. With AI-powered response analysis, you can instantly summarize thousands of lines of feedback, spot key themes, and ask custom questions to the data. It’s effortless to get clarity—even at scale.

Curious to see how follow-ups work in practice? Try generating a survey and watch AI follow-ups in action.

Composing prompts for ChatGPT to brainstorm API documentation quality survey questions

If you want to brainstorm survey questions using ChatGPT or other AI assistants, clear prompting makes all the difference.

Start simple:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for API developers survey about API documentation quality.

But remember—AI delivers better results with context. Add background about your experience, documentation goals, and where you struggle most. Example:

I’m designing a survey for API developers who use our developer portal. Our goal is to identify areas where our API documentation falls short and understand what resources would make their jobs easier. Please generate 10 insightful, open-ended questions tailored to experienced developers who work on complex integrations.

After you collect questions, ask for organization:

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

Now, review the categories, choose what matters most (say, “clarity” or “real-world examples”), and drill down further:

Generate 10 additional questions focused on the “Troubleshooting and error-handling” and “Use case coverage” categories.

Iterative prompting helps you go from generic lists to surveys that hit all the right developer pain points.

What is a conversational survey for API developers?

A conversational survey uses AI—like in Specific—to make surveys feel like a real-time dialogue, not a static form. Instead of dropping 15 questions in a Google Form, you ask the developer one targeted question at a time. After each response, the AI can adapt, probe further, or clarify—as an expert interviewer would.

That’s a huge leap over manual surveys, which are rigid, time-consuming to build, and offer little real-time insight. Here’s a mini comparison:

Why use AI for API developers surveys? It saves mental energy for the creator, lessens drop-offs, and makes feedback richer for you—while respecting the developer’s time. Try an AI survey builder or see an AI survey example for API documentation quality.

The best part: with Specific, you get a best-in-class conversational survey experience for both creators and developers. If you want to know more, check out our article on how to create a developer feedback survey for practical, step-by-step advice.

See this API documentation quality survey example now

Quickly engage API developers and discover what really matters in your documentation—see how easy it is to kickstart better, deeper feedback with conversational AI. Try a survey and unlock insights from the start.