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Writing good questions

This guide is written to help authors designing online guided interviews with docassemble, or interactive legal applications for any platform.

It covers:

  • Which questions to include
  • How to write plain-language questions and supporting content
  • How to group and organize questions into screens
  • How to add supporting content, like next steps

As a general rule we recommend following the Chicago Manual of Style. For technical terms and user interface elements not covered in the Chicago Manual of Style, we recommend the Microsoft Manual of Style.

On this website we have gathered actionable tips and best practices, especially where they might be different than more general guidance such as the style guides above or other guidances about legal writing or writing for forms.

We have also thought deeply about how to measure the burden that completing a form places on a user. You might find our section on form complexity helpful to read along with this section.

There is no substitute for usability testing​

While the contents of this guide are expert guidance, gathered from both our own experience and that of experts in usability, there is no real substitute for observing the experiences of real users of your tool.

The Legal Tech Class materials include a brief primer on conducting your own usability tests. Usability testing can be simple, cheap, and easy!

  1. Plan to conduct just a few—you'll learn most of what you need after the third test, and gain almost nothing after a 5th test.
  2. Usability tests involve one user at a time, not a group.
  3. You can follow a simple script to do a usability test!
  4. Compensation helps. Be ready to pay people for their time.

Read more

Other resources​

Quick reads​

Comprehensive style guides​

Books​