Questioning is an important part of the design process as it guides designers in the right direction as far as users needs and wants. When it comes to questionnaires and surveys, it is crucial that the information be as accurate and relevant as possible. To do so, questionnaires must be formatted and phrased in a specific manner. Questionnaires are used iteratively throughout the design process, but is often found in the beginning as designers are finding the problem their product is hopeful to solve. When using questioning in this manner, it is important to pay attention to the population you are targeting and refining questions to efficiently gain the needed information. I found a myriad of advice for effective questioning in my research of questionnaires and surveying and found that all of my sources stressed the importance of clarity in a question. There are many aspects of questioning you must pay attention to but how the user interprets the question is paramount and questioners can ease this process by asking questions in a way that best gives the user an opportunity to respond in the most informative way. There are two types of questions — open and closed format. Open format questions give users the opportunity to expound on their thoughts. When asking questions in this format, it is important to set the user up with the ability to answer fully and avoid asking questions in a way that elicits a yes/no response. Using introductions such as why and how may help open questions and give users the inclination to be more specific in their answering. The second type of question is a closed format which as it sounds, limits the options users have to respond. This format is found in multiple choice questioning. With this format it is important that both the questions and the answer choices are as clear as possible. In both instances clarity is key, you obviously don’t want your user to be confused and such should avoid overly wordy questions, or questions with negatives, ones that imply a bias, or that are directly leading to an answer. Questions should be as general as possible and should not assume anything about the user that is not implied based on the surveyed population.