Survey Instrument

Survey Instrument

The formal 15-question practitioner survey instrument. Four sections: benchmarking, signal recognition, signal mapping, and framework utility. The interactive version is available at predictwhy.com/survey.

Section A - Current-state benchmarking
Establishes the respondent's professional context and the current capability of their AI system across the ABSD layers.
A1
What is your primary professional domain?
○Customer Experience / CX Technology
○Educational Technology
○Healthcare Technology
○Enterprise SaaS
○E-commerce
○Other
Single select
A2
Which of the following does your AI system currently capture or analyse? Select all that apply.
□Discrete user actions - clicks, page views, purchases
□Behavioural patterns over time - engagement trends, session changes
□User emotional or cognitive states - frustration, confusion, satisfaction
□Underlying user motivations or psychological drivers
Multi-select
A3
How well does your current system understand why users behave the way they do?
Not at all · 1
5 · Very well
Likert scale 1–5
Section B - Signal recognition
Maps which behavioural signals respondents currently detect and which they find most informative.
B4
Which behavioural signals do you observe or track in your product? Select all that apply.
□Hesitation or pause patterns
□Rapid navigation or switching between features
□Re-engagement after a period of inactivity
□Help-seeking behaviour - documentation, support, tooltips
□Changes in interaction pace or session tempo
□Regression to previously completed content or steps
□Error tolerance patterns - retry versus abandon
Multi-select
B5
Which three of those signals are most informative for understanding your users?
□Hesitation or pause patterns
□Rapid navigation or feature switching
□Re-engagement after inactivity
□Help-seeking behaviour
□Changes in interaction pace
□Regression to earlier content
□Error tolerance patterns
Multi-select · maximum 3
B6
Are there behavioural signals in your data that your team does not currently use? If yes, what prevents you from using them?
Open text · optional
Section C - Signal-to-state mapping
Tests whether practitioners apply contextual interpretation to behavioural signals and how they map signals to underlying user states.
C7
A user pauses for 20 seconds before completing a key action. What is the most likely explanation in your domain?
○Confusion or uncertainty
○Careful deliberation
○Distraction
○Cognitive overload
○Something else entirely
Single select
C8
A user rapidly switches between three features without completing any task. What does this most likely indicate?
○Frustration
○Exploration or curiosity
○Inability to find what they need
○Comparison between options
○Something else
Single select
C9
A previously daily user has reduced to weekly sessions over three weeks. What is the most likely driver?
○Reduced sense of success or progress with the tool
○External life circumstances
○Product no longer meeting their needs
○Found an alternative
○I genuinely cannot tell
Single select
C10
How often does the same behavioural signal mean different things depending on context?
Rarely · 1
5 · Almost always
Likert scale 1–5
Section D - Framework utility
Evaluates practitioner assessment of the ABSD framework's practical utility and identifies barriers to implementation.
D11
The ABSD framework proposes four layers: Action, Behaviour, State, Drive. How useful would this layered structure be for your product or analytics work?
Not useful · 1
5 · Immediately applicable
Likert scale 1–5
D12
Which ABSD layer represents the biggest gap in your current system?
○Action - we do not capture enough raw events
○Behaviour - we track events but not patterns
○State - we see patterns but cannot infer what users feel
○Drive - we understand states but not underlying motivation
Single select
D13
If your system could reliably infer user states, what is the primary way you would alter its response?
○Trigger autonomous agent interventions - automated support
○Adapt the UI complexity in real time
○Alter the tone or pacing of content
○Route the user to a human agent immediately
○Something we have not figured out how to do yet
Single select
D14
What is the single biggest barrier to implementing deeper user understanding in your system?
○Technical complexity - the engineering is not straightforward
○Data availability - we do not have the right signals
○Organisational priorities - it is not on the roadmap
○Ethical or privacy concerns
○Lack of a guiding framework - we did not know where to start
Single select
D15
Would you use the ABSD framework as a reference in your product design or analytics discussions?
○Yes - immediately applicable to our work
○Potentially, with modifications for our context
○Not in its current form
○Not relevant to my work
Single select
Prefer to take the interactive version? The card-by-card survey with voice input and a personalised closing profile is at predictwhy.com/survey.