Here are some of the best questions for a conference participants survey about virtual platform usability, plus practical tips on how to craft them. You can use Specific to quickly build your own tailored survey in just seconds.
Best open-ended questions for conference participants survey about virtual platform usability
Open-ended questions let conference participants share genuine thoughts rather than just ticking boxes. Their major benefit is the opportunity to uncover unexpected insights and user stories. While open-ended questions give amazing depth, it's smart not to overdo them—people have a higher dropout rate when faced with too many text boxes, with studies showing nonresponse rates for open-ended survey questions can reach as high as 50% in some cases[1]. Still, when used thoughtfully, they deliver richer, more nuanced data. Here are our favorite open-ended questions for understanding virtual platform usability:
What was the most challenging part of using the virtual platform during the conference?
Can you describe any technical issues you experienced while joining or navigating sessions?
What features of the platform worked exceptionally well for you?
How did the platform influence your engagement with other participants and speakers?
What could have improved your experience with the virtual conference platform?
Which parts of the event felt easiest or most intuitive to access?
Did you feel supported when you encountered issues? Please elaborate.
What additional resources or features would have helped make your experience smoother?
How did your experience compare to other virtual events you’ve attended?
If you could suggest one change for next year, what would it be?
Even though some respondents may skip open-ended items, research shows that when people engage—in one study, 76% of participants provided extra comments—they can provide detailed and actionable feedback[2]. Balance is key: use open-ended questions strategically for topics that require depth, and combine with closed-ended questions to keep response rates high.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for conference participants survey about virtual platform usability
Single-select multiple-choice questions are best when you want to quantify responses quickly or provide an easy way for conference participants to share their opinion without much friction. They're especially useful for kickstarting a conversation—offering quick choices, followed by an open-ended "why" can get the respondent thinking deeply but keep them engaged. This style makes completing the survey less daunting, and gives you structured data for analysis.
Question: How would you rate the ease of navigating the virtual conference platform?
Very easy
Somewhat easy
Neutral
Somewhat difficult
Very difficult
Question: Did you encounter any technical issues when participating in sessions?
Yes, frequently
Yes, occasionally
No, not at all
Other
Question: Which virtual conference feature did you use most often?
Live chat
Breakout rooms
Polls/Q&A
Resource downloads
Other
When to follow up with "why?" If a participant selects an answer that’s particularly positive or negative, asking "why?" reveals valuable detail. For instance, someone choosing "Very difficult" for navigation could clarify what tripped them up, helping you address real pain points.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include "Other" when the options might not cover all experiences—virtual platforms are diverse, and participants may have used features or faced issues not listed. With a follow-up, the "Other" category can uncover insights you didn’t expect and inform future improvements.
NPS question—does it make sense here?
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question is a proven metric for gauging loyalty and satisfaction by asking how likely someone is to recommend your virtual conference platform to others. In the context of virtual platform usability, it's a powerful benchmark—tracking this score over time shows whether usability fixes impact participants’ willingness to promote your event or platform.
Many platforms and event managers rely on NPS not just for product feedback, but as a key measure of user advocacy and perceived value. Try our NPS survey generator for conference participants to add this to your feedback toolkit.
The power of follow-up questions
If you want to dive deep and make every response count, don’t overlook follow-up questions. Specific’s automatic AI-powered follow-up feature is a game-changer. It enables you to have real conversations at scale—analyzing responses in real time and instantly probing for clarity or detail, just like an experienced interviewer.
Consider the impact. Automated follow-ups mean no more backlog of ambiguous results you need to clarify by email. Instead, the survey asks in-the-moment for details—making answers richer and more actionable. As research shows, conversation-based surveys elicit much longer, more detailed answers: 53% of conversational survey responses are over 100 words, compared to just 5% for traditional open-ended surveys[3].
Conference participant: "I had trouble finding the breakout sessions."
AI follow-up: "Could you tell me more about what made finding the breakout sessions difficult? Were there missing links or unclear labels?"
How many follow-ups to ask? Aim for 2–3 well-targeted follow-ups per topic. This strikes a good balance—enough to get substance, not so many that it feels like an interrogation. With Specific, you can set a cap and skip to the next question as soon as you’ve gathered the needed information.
This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of feeling like a static form, your survey becomes a two-way dialogue, improving insight and engagement.
AI response analysis, rich open-ended answers, survey summaries: Don’t let unstructured data scare you off. With Specific’s AI-powered response analysis, you can quickly summarize and explore results—even when you’ve gathered pages of open comments.
These AI-generated, in-the-moment follow-up questions are a new way to get to the “why” behind every answer. Try generating a conversational survey to see the effect for yourself.
How to compose a prompt for ChatGPT (or other GPTs) to generate great questions
If you're using AI tools like ChatGPT to brainstorm survey questions, start broad and get more specific. Here’s how:
For a quick starting point, use:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for conference participants survey about virtual platform usability.
However, you’ll get far better results with more context. Specify your audience, event type, level of technical familiarity, and your goal for feedback:
We are running a large international scientific conference using a custom virtual platform. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to understand how participants experienced joining, navigating, and engaging with others, and what usability issues affected their overall experience.
Once you have your questions, ask the AI to organize them by theme:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
From there, identify the most useful categories and ask for more depth:
Generate 10 questions for the categories "engagement with sessions" and "technical support and help resources."
This “prompt > categorize > refine” method assures you get a well-rounded, focused question set tailored to your context. See how Specific’s AI survey builder channels this same principle by interviewing you and instantly generating smart, relevant surveys.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey uses AI to mimic the flow of a real conversation: questions are asked one at a time, the survey adapts naturally to responses, and intelligent follow-ups keep the participant engaged. This is fundamentally different from traditional surveys, where all questions are laid out like a form—leaving the burden on the respondent to write everything at once and often resulting in shallow or incomplete answers.
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Survey (Conversational) |
|---|---|
Write questions by hand, struggle with wording, limited by own experience | Describe what you want, AI generates questions using best practices |
Static forms, no adaptive conversation | Dynamically adapts to responses, asks smart follow-ups |
Harder to get rich feedback, risk of incomplete answers | Deeper insights, more thorough answers in less time |
Why use AI for conference participant surveys? AI-driven conversational surveys make it easier to gather richer, more actionable feedback from busy attendees. Participants are more likely to finish, more willing to share stories, and less fatigued by the process. Plus, AI survey examples—like those created with Specific—are both efficient to launch and smooth to analyze, with features like AI survey editing and real-time reporting.
With Specific, we’re committed to best-in-class user experience. The conversational survey experience is engaging for both the person creating it and the people replying—helping you capture authentic insights without burdening your participants. For a hands-on walkthrough, see our guide on how to create a conference participant survey for virtual platform usability.
See this virtual platform usability survey example now
Unlock better event feedback and actionable insights from your audience by switching to a conversational survey approach—the fastest way to surface what your conference participants actually experience and need. Create your own now with expert-backed, AI-generated questions and follow-ups for the best results.