This article will guide you step-by-step to create a patient survey about patient portal usability. With Specific, you can build a powerful survey for patients in seconds, no expertise required.
Steps to create a survey for patients about patient portal usability
If you want to save time, just click this link to generate a survey with Specific. It doesn’t get easier than this.
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
You don’t even need to read further if you just want to start—AI handles expert question writing and will automatically prompt respondents with follow-up questions to uncover deeper insights. If you want more control or inspiration, keep reading! You can also try the AI survey generator from scratch for any topic.
Why patient portal usability surveys matter
Skipping patient feedback is a huge missed opportunity for healthcare providers. Patient portal usability surveys are critical for understanding how well your digital experience actually supports patients. If you’re not measuring this, you’re flying blind and leaving essential care improvements (and satisfaction points) on the table.
Collecting patient feedback is essential for enhancing healthcare services. Studies show that anonymous feedback can increase response rates by up to 30%, helping you capture more honest, actionable insights. [1]
90% of patients use online reviews to evaluate physicians. Your digital portal is a key part of that online reputation—and hearing directly from patients about usability can make or break your practice’s perception. [2]
Patients who feel heard are more likely to follow treatment plans, stick with your practice, and recommend you to others. Actionable feedback loops lead to improved health outcomes and patient loyalty. [3]
If you’re not running usability surveys, you’re missing out on critical learning: clarity on confusing features, the “why” behind patient drop-offs, or even positive insights about what’s working best in your portal’s experience. This is the foundation for a more patient-centered practice.
What makes a good survey on patient portal usability
Good patient surveys, especially about portal experiences, share a few key traits. The most important is asking clear, unbiased questions that make it easy for every patient to respond. Complex, leading, or jargon-heavy questions erode trust and drop your response rate.
The next essential is adopting a conversational tone. When surveys feel like human dialogue—rather than formal, cold checklists—patients are more likely to open up, increasing both response quality and quantity. You want both: lots of answers, and deep, honest feedback from every patient.
Bad practices | Good practices |
---|---|
Vague, multi-part prompts | Specific, single-topic questions |
Jargon or technical terms | Patient-friendly everyday language |
Strictly yes/no checkboxes | Some open-ended follow-ups |
Too many required questions | Short, respectful of patient’s time |
Think quality and quantity: your best signal of a well-designed patient portal survey is when you see high participation and richly detailed responses coming in.
What are question types with examples for a patient survey about patient portal usability
Survey success often starts with question selection. You want the right mix of open-ended, multiple-choice, and NPS-style questions, each unlocking a different layer of patient feedback.
Open-ended questions let patients describe experiences in their own words, revealing context you’d never predict with closed questions. Use these to explore problems or wishes (“Describe the most frustrating part about using our portal.”). Example open questions:
What features of the patient portal do you find most helpful, and why?
Can you share one thing that would make using the portal easier for you?
Single-select multiple-choice questions provide fast, structured data for quick analysis. These are perfect for gauging frequency or identifying the most/least used features:
Which function in the patient portal do you use most often?
Booking appointments
Viewing test results
Messaging a doctor
Paying bills
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question benchmarks patient loyalty and satisfaction at a glance. We recommend using this for any product or portal experience survey. Want to set one up? Generate an NPS survey for patients about portal usability here.
How likely are you to recommend our patient portal to a friend or family member?
(0 = Not at all likely, 10 = Extremely likely)
Followup questions to uncover "the why" are essential for context. If a patient reports dissatisfaction or a low NPS score, instant follow-ups like “What caused you to rate us that way?” provide the real data leaders need to drive improvements. This gives you depth, not just surface sentiment, from your respondents.
Can you tell us more about what made that feature difficult to use?
What could we do to improve your experience next time?
If you want to learn more, check out our article on best questions for patient portal usability surveys and tips on crafting them for maximum impact.
What is a conversational survey
Traditional surveys are long, impersonal forms. A conversational survey mimics a natural dialogue between patient and care provider. Instead of bombarding people with rigid questions, it uses chat-style responses—much like texting a friend—producing higher engagement and candor.
AI survey generation revolutionizes this process by removing the manual labor: instead of designing question logic, follow-ups, and tone from scratch, our AI survey generator builds the conversation for you within seconds. This is not just a time saver—it’s a leap in quality. AI-powered surveys adapt to each respondent, ask smart follow-ups, and even clarify vague answers in real time, delivering richer insights.
Manual Surveys | AI-generated Surveys |
---|---|
Static, predefined questions | Dynamic, adaptive conversations |
No automatic follow-ups | Smart, real-time follow-up questions |
Dull, form-like experience | Chat-style, engaging for respondents |
Why use AI for patient surveys? Because you stand to gain more complete, honest, and actionable data. The AI survey example approach means automatic context gathering, deeper personal engagement, and a workload reduction for your team. Specific’s conversational surveys deliver an enjoyable, frictionless experience for both you and your patients—making quality feedback easy every time.
Interested in the full survey creation workflow? Read our complete guide to creating and analyzing patient portal usability surveys using AI tools.
The power of follow-up questions
The real magic of a conversational survey, especially for patient feedback, lies in the follow-up. Too often, standard forms gather shallow, incomplete responses that leave healthcare providers guessing about context. Specific’s automated followup questions transform this by enabling the AI to instantly ask “why” or “how” questions, tailored to each respondent’s previous answers. That means you get context and motivation—just like an expert interviewer, but with no manual effort.
Patient: “I had trouble finding my lab results.”
AI follow-up: “What made finding your lab results difficult? Were there specific labels or navigation steps that confused you?”
This process prevents unclear answers and saves your team hours that would otherwise be spent following up by email or phone. The conversation stays natural, and your data stays actionable.
How many followups to ask? We suggest enabling 2-3 follow-ups for most patient survey questions. That’s enough to get rich info without overwhelming respondents. Specific lets you set this up easily, and skip to the next question as soon as your insight objectives are hit.
This makes it a conversational survey: follow-ups help the survey feel like a helpful chat, not an interrogation.
Easy AI-powered analysis: With AI, you can quickly analyze even large numbers of open-response followups, surfacing trends without manual reading. Explore how this works in our article on using AI to analyze patient survey responses or try our AI survey response analysis tool.
These automated followup questions are a new standard in survey design. We encourage you to generate a survey and see the difference—your feedback pipeline will never be the same.
See this patient portal usability survey example now
Want to elevate your patient feedback? Generate a conversational patient portal usability survey and get richer insights instantly—AI followups and response analysis included. Don’t wait to start hearing what your patients really think!