Best questions for conference participants survey about wayfinding and signage

Here are some of the best questions for a conference participants survey about wayfinding and signage, plus practical tips to craft questions that get meaningful feedback. If you want to build your own, you can generate a survey in seconds with Specific, leveraging AI for smart follow-up and analysis.

Best open-ended questions for wayfinding and signage surveys

Open-ended questions give people the freedom to share their thoughts in detail, offering rich context you’d never get from checkbox forms. These are key when you’re looking for honest perspectives and new ideas—especially when a tick box just won’t cut it. True, open-ended questions can have higher nonresponse rates (with Pew Research Center noting nonresponse rates as high as 50% for some open-ended items compared to only 1–2% for closed questions) [1]. But that trade-off often brings much deeper insights, because you learn what truly matters to participants. In fact, 80.7% of management teams in one health survey found open-text responses 'Very useful' or 'Useful' for quality improvement [2].

Here are 10 open-ended questions to spark detailed feedback from conference participants about wayfinding and signage:

1. What was your overall experience with the signage at this conference?

2. Can you describe any difficulties you had finding specific rooms or locations?

3. Which signs or directions helped you the most during your visit?

4. Were there any areas where signage was confusing or missing?

5. How did you feel about the clarity and readability of the signs?

6. Is there a particular spot where you think more signage is needed? Why?

7. How accessible did you find the signage for all attendees, including those with disabilities?

8. If you had to improve one aspect of the wayfinding experience, what would it be?

9. Can you share any positive experiences related to finding your way around?

10. What suggestions do you have for improving signage at future events?

It’s smart to mix in a few open-ended questions, aiming for about 10% of your total survey to keep things manageable for participants while still reaping that qualitative gold [4].

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for conference surveys

When you want fast, quantifiable feedback—or want to get the conversation started without overwhelming your audience—single-select multiple-choice questions are your go-to. They’re perfect for benchmarking, spotting trends, and keeping the survey breezy. Respondents can choose an answer quickly, and you get clean data for analysis. Combining open and closed-ended questions can actually predict future attendee behavior 27% better than ratings alone [3], so you really do get the best of both worlds.

Question: How easy was it for you to find your way to key areas within the venue?

• Very easy

• Somewhat easy

• Somewhat difficult

• Very difficult

Question: Which type of signage did you find most helpful?

• Overhead signs

• Wall maps

• Directional floor markings

• Digital screens

• None

• Other

Question: Did you encounter any places where signage was unclear or missing?

• Yes

• No

• Not sure

When to follow up with "why?" Sometimes, you’ll want to dig deeper—especially when someone picks an answer that signals a potential problem or surprise. For example, if a participant says, “Somewhat difficult” when asked about ease of navigation, it’s great to add a follow-up: “Can you describe what made it difficult for you?” This helps uncover actionable insights you’d otherwise miss.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include “Other” when you suspect you don’t know every possible answer your participants might give. This lets respondents highlight needs or experiences you hadn’t considered. Then, ask a follow-up: “Please specify.” That’s where unexpected gems come out—sometimes the best ideas are the ones you never thought to list.

NPS question for wayfinding and signage feedback

NPS, or Net Promoter Score, asks how likely someone is to recommend something—in this case, the conference’s wayfinding and signage—to a friend or colleague. It provides a quick, market-standard benchmark that shows overall satisfaction and reveals where you stand compared to other events. For situations like event logistics and attendee experience, NPS is especially valuable because it’s simple but surprisingly predictive, and works great with follow-up questions. If you want a head start, you can create an NPS survey for conference participants about wayfinding and signage using Specific’s builder.

The power of follow-up questions

A smart survey doesn’t just ask once—it knows how to ask again. Automated follow-up questions, like those in Specific’s suite, go deeper to clarify, explore, and capture the full context of each response. This approach drives richer feedback while feeling like an authentic conversation, not an interrogation. Research backs this up: follow-up designs for open-ended questions yield longer, more thoughtful answers with broader themes, and don’t overwhelm respondents with extra burden [5].

• Participant: "The map wasn’t very clear."

• AI follow-up: "What about the map did you find unclear? Was it the layout, the labeling, or something else?"

How many followups to ask? Usually, 2–3 follow-ups are plenty. After that, responses start to taper off in terms of new value. With Specific, you can tweak these settings and even let the survey skip to the next question when the insight you need has been captured.

This makes it a conversational survey: Following up based on what participants actually say creates a genuine back-and-forth, turning your survey into a real conversation.

AI analysis of qualitative data: Even if you have loads of open-text feedback, Specific’s AI will summarize themes and make sense of it all. Want to know how? Read our guide on analyzing responses from your wayfinding and signage survey using AI.

Conversational follow-ups are a new standard—try generating your own survey and see just how natural it feels.

Crafting great prompts for AI-generated survey questions

If you want ChatGPT or any GPT-based tool to help brainstorm questions for a conference wayfinding and signage survey, start with a broad, open prompt. For example:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for conference participants about wayfinding and signage.

It gets better if you supply more detail: tell the AI who you are, your session goals, what you worry participants might struggle with, and the kind of feedback you value most. For instance:

We are planning a large technology conference. Please suggest 10 open-ended questions to discover how participants experience our venue’s wayfinding and signage, any challenges they face, and specific ideas for improvement—especially considering first-time attendees and accessibility concerns.

Next, organize the ideas:

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

Once you see the categories, pick the areas you want to dig into further. For those, prompt:

Generate 10 questions for the categories “sign clarity,” “digital signage feedback,” and “accessibility.”

This process gets you a focused, relevant question set for your specific audience, covering all the nuances that matter in real event feedback.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey isn’t just a fancy form—it feels like a real dialogue. Instead of static forms, respondents chat with the AI, answer questions that adjust to their input, and get prompts designed to clarify and deepen insights. The difference is dramatic. Here’s a quick comparison:

Conversational surveys produce richer insights because they adapt in real time, ask for more details when needed, and keep participants engaged. They’re much easier to analyze, too—AI does the heavy lifting summarizing both structured and open-text replies, with features like AI-powered survey response analysis and a smart AI survey editor that lets you iterate on your questions just by chatting.

Why use AI for conference participant surveys? The main reason: it’s both faster and more thorough. Instead of spending hours scripting and analyzing, you can create a conversational survey with AI in minutes, with expert-quality questions, adaptive follow-ups, and instant insights. You, your team, and your respondents all win.

If you’re looking for the smoothest, most engaging feedback loop, Specific offers best-in-class user experience for conversational surveys, with fuss-free creation and response flows tailored to real-world event needs.

See this wayfinding and signage survey example now

Ready for actionable feedback on navigation and signs at your event? See a dynamic wayfinding and signage survey example—built for rich, conversational insights and powered by AI—so you can start capturing better attendee feedback today.