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Developer experience survey template

Find out where developers get stuck, on the way to their first API call

Four questions for developers a few days after they create an API key: how easy the first successful call was, the language they use, what helped most and where they got stuck. Use it as it is or change any question, and Usertick reads every written answer for you.

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What this developer experience survey tells you

A developer experience survey asks the people building on your API how the first steps went. This template asks four questions in about a minute: how easy it was to make the first successful API call, which language they use most, a ranking of what helped, and where they got stuck, even briefly.

It is written for an email to developers a few days after they create their first API key, sent each week to the developers with new keys. The same survey works as a link at the end of your quickstart guide, and inside the page on your developer docs when they run on your own domain.

Results shows the average effort on the 1 to 7 scale and the share who found it easy, the share of each language and the average place of each resource in the ranking. Every written answer is read as it arrives and filed under a category such as getting started or integrations, with a theme and a type, so a confusing error and a missing SDK come apart.

In an emailAs a linkOn your websiteAs a conversation
Questions
4
Time to answer
About a minute
Written for
An email a few days after a developer's first API key
Plans
Every plan, the free plan included

See it on every channel

The same template on your website, behind a link, in an email and as a conversation.

In an email

Send it from Usertick to a contact list, with the first question inside the email. A tap on an answer opens the rest of the survey with that answer already kept. Usertick sends 50 emails a month on the free plan, or connect your own sender.

The 4 questions, one by one

What each question asks, why it is there, what it shows you and what to change.

Question 1 of 4 · Customer effort

How easy was it to make your first successful API call?

Why ask it
The first successful call is the moment a developer decides whether the API is worth their time. An effort scale from very difficult to very easy measures exactly that step.
What you learn
The average on the 1 to 7 scale and the share who found it easy, with a hard-to-easy bar, compared with the period before, so a docs or SDK change shows in the next period.
Make it yours
Keep it first. In the email, developers tap a score inside the message and the rest of the survey opens with that answer kept.
Question 2 of 4 · Dropdown · Optional

Which language do you use with our API most?

Why ask it
Effort depends on the language: a polished JavaScript SDK says nothing about the experience in Go. The language lets you read each score in context.
What you learn
A donut with the share and count of each language, with typed Other answers listed. Select a language to see the effort score and the stuck points of those developers alone.
Make it yours
List the languages you have SDKs for first, so the Other answers show which SDK to build next.
Question 3 of 4 · Ranking · Optional

Rank what helped you most

Why ask it
Ranking the resources shows where developers found their answers, which tells you where to put documentation time.
What you learn
The average place of each resource, so the one most developers put first shows at the top, compared with the period before.
Make it yours
If the list grows, set Rank only the top to 3, so developers tap the three that mattered in order instead of sorting everything.
Question 4 of 4 · Text · Optional

Where did you get stuck, even briefly?

Why ask it
Short moments of confusion, such as an auth header or a pagination parameter, rarely reach support but add up. Asking about even brief stops brings them out.
What you learn
Usertick reads each answer, files it under a category and a theme, and marks it as a bug, a question, an idea or a complaint. Filter by theme to read every stuck point in one area at once.
Make it yours
On every plan, a workflow can open a Linear or Jira issue for each answer marked as a bug, so docs errors reach the team that owns them.

What the answers show

Results turns each question into numbers you can follow week by week.

How easy was it to make your first successful API call?

The average on its own scale and the share who found it easy, against the period before and by device.

Which language do you use with our API most?

The share of each answer with its count. Select an answer to narrow the whole page to those people and read what else they said.

Every written answer, read for you

Each answer arrives with its category, theme, type and urgency, so the urgent ones reach your team first.

Use this template in four steps

From the template to the first answers.

  1. 1

    Open the template

    Sign up free and pick Developer experience in the template gallery. It opens in a matching style, ready to change.

  2. 2

    Make the questions yours

    Reword any question, change the options, and add logic or more questions.

  3. 3

    Choose where it runs

    Show it on your website, send it by email, share its link and QR code, or switch it to a conversation.

  4. 4

    Publish and read the answers

    Answers arrive in Results and the inbox as people send them, each written one read and filed by Usertick.

Tips for this survey

Small choices that keep people answering and the answers useful.

  1. 01

    Send it each week to new keys

    Usertick doesn't send after an event in your system, so export the developers who created a first key that week, import them as a list and send the survey to it.

  2. 02

    Put the link in your quickstart

    Add the survey link at the end of the quickstart guide and tag it with ?utm_source=quickstart, so workflows, Google Sheets and webhooks can tell those answers apart.

  3. 03

    Read effort by language

    Select each language in Results and compare the effort score, so the SDK that needs work stands out.

  4. 04

    Fix one stuck point at a time

    Fix the stuck point named most each month, note the change in your docs changelog, and watch the effort score in the next period.

Product feedbackSaaS surveysEmail surveysIntegrations and API questions

More product feedback templates and questions

Templates like this one, and single questions from the library to add to it.

Templates

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ProductProduct feedbackGive users one place to share what they think of the product, sorted by area so it reaches the right team. Run it as an always-on feedback button inside your app.
ProductFeature requestCollect feature ideas together with the problem behind them and how people cope today. Link it from your help menu, your roadmap or your changelog.
ProductBeta feedbackGet structured feedback from early users on a feature before it launches to everyone. Send it after testers have used the beta for about a week.
ProductFeature adoption checkFind out whether users have found a new feature, what keeps the rest away and what would make it part of their routine. Show it in the app two weeks after the release.

Questions from the library

Browse the question library
  1. Which tools do you need us to connect with?Multiple choice · Integrations and API
  2. How easy was it to set up your first integration?Customer effort · Integrations and API
  3. Does the integration send everything you expected?Yes / No · Integrations and API
  4. How many teammates do you work with inside the product?Number · Team collaboration
  5. Did inviting your team go smoothly?Yes / No · Team collaboration
  6. How easy is it to share work with someone outside your team?Customer effort · Team collaboration

Frequently asked questions

A few days after a developer creates their first API key, once they have tried a real call. Earlier, many haven't started; much later, the first steps are forgotten.

Not on its own. Send it each week to a list of developers with new keys, or show it on your developer docs to signed-in developers, targeted with traits from Starter.

Yes, when your docs run on your own domain with the Usertick script. Embed it at the end of the quickstart page, where it shows as soon as the page loads.

Select a low score in Results and read where those developers got stuck, then compare their language with the rest. A pattern in one language points to that SDK.

Every developer who created a key, including those who never made a successful call. Their answers explain the keys that go unused.

Yes. Every template comes with every plan, the free plan included, and the free plan covers 150 responses a month across your surveys.

Yes. The template becomes your own survey, so reword any question, add or remove questions, and change the options and the logic. The gallery stays as it is.

Yes, from Starter. The template is written in US English. Add languages by hand or with AI translation, and each person sees the survey in their browser's language.

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