UEQ: User Experience Questionnaire

The User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) is a standardized questionnaire for measuring user experience (UX), developed by Laugwitz, Held and Schrepp (2008). It captures the overall perception and emotional response users have when interacting with a product, service, or interface.

Developed to complement usability testing, the UEQ measures not only efficiency and clarity but also emotional engagement - giving researchers a well-rounded picture of how users feel about what they use.

The UEQ consists of a series of bipolar statements (e.g., "unattractive – attractive") rated on a seven-point scale from -3 to +3, helping teams quantify attitudes toward usability, design quality, and satisfaction.

It evaluates six main dimensions of UX:

1. Attractiveness – Overall impression and visual appeal of the product.
2. Perspicuity (clarity) – Ease of understanding, learning, and navigation.
3. Efficiency – How effectively the product supports users in achieving their goals.
4. Dependability – Reliability, predictability, and consistency during use.
5. Stimulation – The product's ability to inspire and engage.
6. Novelty – Perceived innovation, uniqueness and creativity.

Together, these categories give a quantitative profile of user experience, which can be compared against the official UEQ benchmark or competing products.

When and Why to Use UEQ

The UEQ is widely used in UX research for websites, mobile apps, software platforms and digital products. It helps organizations measure how design decisions affect perception, usability and emotional engagement.

Key Advantages

• Two kinds of quality. Measures both pragmatic (task-oriented) and hedonic (emotional) aspects of UX.
• Benchmarking. Enables performance comparison against similar products or industry averages.
• Speed and simplicity. Easy to administer and analyze, even with moderate sample sizes.
• Adaptability. Can be customized to focus on specific user groups or product features.

Researchers often add an open-ended follow-up question to the UEQ to learn why users rated the product as they did.

UEQ Procedure

The UEQ follows a structured procedure to ensure reliable and valid data collection.

1. Define Research Objectives

Clarify what you want to learn - for instance, how intuitive a new dashboard is or whether a redesigned checkout improves clarity.

2. Choose or Customize the Questionnaire

Use the standard UEQ form or adapt the items to fit your product. If you change items, keep half of the pairs starting with the positive term and half with the negative one, as in the original.

3. Select Participants

Choose a group representative of your target audience using appropriate sampling methods.

4. Prepare Participants

Ensure respondents understand the product or prototype and are comfortable using it before completing the questionnaire.

5. Conduct the Survey

Provide access via web form, paper questionnaire, or integrated app module. Randomize the order of adjective pairs to reduce bias.

6. Collect and Process Responses

After completion, compute category averages across all participants.

7. Analyze Results

Interpret findings within context, comparing results against benchmarks and identifying areas needing improvement.

8. Take Action

Translate insights into product design changes, user interface improvements, or feature redesigns.

9. Reassess After Changes

Conduct follow-up UEQs after the changes to measure progress and check their impact.

Questionnaire Structure

Participants rate 26 pairs of attributes on a 7-point bipolar scale. Answers are coded from -3 to +3, and the pairs are listed below as they appear in the English version: in about half of them the positive term comes first.

Attractiveness (6 items)

• annoying – enjoyable
• good – bad
• unlikable – pleasing
• unpleasant – pleasant
• attractive – unattractive
• friendly – unfriendly

Perspicuity (4 items)

• not understandable – understandable
• easy to learn – difficult to learn
• complicated – easy
• clear – confusing

Efficiency (4 items)

• fast – slow
• inefficient – efficient
• impractical – practical
• organized – cluttered

Dependability (4 items)

• unpredictable – predictable
• obstructive – supportive
• secure – not secure
• meets expectations – does not meet expectations

Stimulation (4 items)

• valuable – inferior
• boring – exciting
• not interesting – interesting
• motivating – demotivating

Novelty (4 items)

• creative – dull
• inventive – conventional
• usual – leading edge
• conservative – innovative

The alternating order of negative and positive items minimizes "patterned responses," promoting thoughtful participation.

Answer Analysis and Scoring

To calculate category scores:

1. Recode the answers so that +3 is always the positive pole, then compute each participant's average rating per category.
2. Aggregate averages across all respondents to get overall mean scores.

Positive scores (closer to +3) indicate favorable experiences, while negative scores (closer to -3) reveal dissatisfaction or usability issues.

Example:

• Stimulation: +1.3
• Dependability: –0.8
• Efficiency: +2.1

Such results suggest users find the product engaging and fast, but potentially unreliable or inconsistent.

Open-ended comments collected alongside the UEQ help explain the why behind these numbers.

What Is a Normal UEQ Score

The UEQ authors publish an official benchmark (Schrepp, Hinderks and Thomaschewski, 2017) built from hundreds of product evaluations. It places each scale mean into one of five categories: Excellent, Good, Above average, Below average and Bad. The thresholds are updated as the dataset grows, so take the current values from the UEQ Data Analysis Tool on the official UEQ website instead of copying them from older articles.

General rule: the UEQ handbook treats scale means between -0.8 and +0.8 as a neutral evaluation, values above +0.8 as positive and values below -0.8 as negative. Interpretation still depends on context: a cutting-edge product might score lower in perspicuity but higher in novelty.

When planning UEQ-based studies, use the Sample Size Calculator to ensure adequate representation for statistical reliability.

How to Improve UEQ Scores

Improvement depends on identifying which UX dimension underperforms and addressing it systematically.

• Low Attractiveness: Refine visual design and consistency.
• Low Perspicuity: Simplify navigation and onboarding.
• Low Efficiency: Optimize task flow and reduce clicks.
• Low Dependability: Improve stability and error handling.
• Low Stimulation or Novelty: Add innovative elements or gamification features to sustain engagement.

Complement quantitative findings with qualitative user interviews and behavioral observation to ensure changes align with real needs.