Bob LiuNutrition profile
At any stage of your project, learn directly from individual users about their relevant experience to inform defining, understanding, and designing a product or feature.
Cooking time
User interviews can be done in person, on the phone, or using videoconferencing software. Allow 1-1.5 hours for in-person interviews, and 30 minutes for phone or video interviews.
Perfect for
Exploratory research, such as capturing the user's perspectives and opinions, or what they think about using a product. User interviews usually focus less on the product’s usability.
Ingredients
If you’re planning for an in-person or phone interview, prepare for a setup that allows you to type or scribble fast as you'll often want to capture as much details as possible. You'll also want to record the audio as long as the participant gives consent. Here’s what you need for an in-person setup:
- A device for taking notes (e.g. laptop, tablet, or pen and paper)
- A device for recording audio (e.g. voice recorder or laptop)
For online user interviews, we recommend using Zoom as it provides the options to record meetings and automatically generate transcript, which are helpful for gathering notes and reviewing the conversation.
Regardless of the way you conduct user interviews, there are tools that are designed specifically for capturing insights from the conversation. A tool that we recommend is Reframer, which is part of the Optimal Workshop suite of tools. The tool lets you capture observations by typing short sentences, and adding tags to each of them along the way. It will then generate analysis based on the tags to help you identify patterns.
Prep work
Write a script
Think of the script as a framework that guides your conversation. It should include necessary context for your participant and questions you want to probe into. Ballpark the time needed to answer the questions and make sure you allow room for digression, as you’ll always want to hear more thoughts from your participant.
Find a notetaker and/or observer
User interviews can theoretically be done one-on-one, but it’s challenging. You’ll want to capture as much thoughts as possible, so it’s better if you can find someone else to take notes while you focus on the conversation. They might also come up with good follow-up questions in case you miss any. If your setup allows extra observers, consider inviting one or two stakeholders or other people who drive decision-making to the conversation.
Recruit participants
Define your audience in advance to make sure you're meeting with the right people who can speak to your research questions. You can either find people who are familiar with your product, or recruit other users who have expressed interest. Having a set of screening questions when recruiting may also help you reach those who fit better.
Consider offering appropriate incentives such as gift cards or company swag to encourage participation.
Plan to interview only one participant at a time. User interviews are different from focus group sessions (where you sit down with a group of participants)—you’ll not want one opinion to influence another. You may occasionally interview with two people who are familiar with each other, but one-on-one sessions are best suited for capturing individual voices.
Directions
Setting up
After confirming with participants, reach out to each participant individually to secure a time slot that also works for your team. You may also use the appointment slot feature in Google Calendar, the meeting registration feature in Zoom, or other paid tools like Doodle that let the participant choose a slot among a few options.
Before your participant arrive, make sure everyone is familiar with their role. If there are more than one interviewers, confirm each interviewer has a copy of the questions and understand their parts. If you have an in-person setup, consider offering your participant beverage and snacks upon their arrival.
Greeting the participant
Make sure your participant feels comfortable before starting the conversation. Introduce everyone and fill in the background of your project for the participant. Try to get to know your participant and build rapport through small talk.
Asking for consent
Clearly state to your participant that you’d like to record the conversation and take notes, and ask if you have their consent. Here’s an example:
- “We plan to take notes from this conversation. We’d also like to record your voice so that we can better analyze your feedback later. Your image or video will not be recorded, and what you say will not be shared with people outside of this group. Do we have your consent?”
Consider preparing a consent form if you need a formal documentation of their consent. If the participant does not want to be recorded, ask if you have their consent to just take notes.
Asking questions
There are three types of questions that you might ask during a user interview: open-ended, close-ended, and probing. Here are a few examples:
- “What are the tools you normally use when creating a spreadsheet?” (open-ended)
- “Have you ever used this tool before?” (close-ended)
- “What makes you prefer Google Sheets over Microsoft Excel?” (probing)
Always ask follow-up questions if you want to encourage the participant to dive in deeper. The interviews are supposed to be semi-structured, so you may digress from the script if needed.
Closing the interview
Always end the conversation with questions like “is there anything else you’d like to share?” to give the participant more time to share their thoughts. Also, now is the time to offer them incentives if you have any.
Don’t forget to thank them for their time. You can also tell them to reach out again if anything else comes to their mind.
Debrief
If time allows, arrange a debrief with everyone present immediately after the interview. This helps your group preserve the memory while it’s still fresh. Ask questions like “what are the highlights for you?” or “Did you notice any repeating patterns?” then take notes of the group’s response.
Plating
When it’s time to bring what you found from the user interview to a larger group, consider presenting a summarized version instead of the raw data. It’s a good idea to draft your summary from the debrief notes.
It doesn’t matter which format you stick with—you can present a document, a slide deck, or a short video. Make sure your summary includes these three parts:
- Methods: how many participants you recruited, how you recruited them, how much time you spent with each participant, and what questions you asked.
- Findings: the patterns that emerged from your interviews. Feature highlights captured from the previous debrief, and add related quotes or audio transcription if possible.
- Recommendations: let the team know where to go next based on your findings. Start each conclusion with “we recommend ...” or “we suggest ...” instead of “you should ...” to soften the tone.
Pro tips
Avoid asking leading or judgmental questions. In order to obtain unbiased feedback from participants, interviewers must stay neutral throughout the process. Examples of questions not to ask:
- “How do you feel about this awful product?”
- “Do you hate this interaction as much as I do?”
- “Did you never notice the glaringly red button?”
However, it’s OK to follow the lead of the participant and continue probing on opinions they’ve already expressed. Examples of questions that you should ask:
- “You mentioned the connection is often slow. What actions do you take when you have a slow connection?”
- “You said previously that you don’t like the layout of the page. Can you try to explain why?”
Avoid asking compound questions. These questions can be confusing or intimidating, and often lead the participant to think that they’re being rushed to come up with an answer. They may only answer the final part of the question. The interviewer can also lose track of the unanswered part of the question, and struggle to follow up on every point.
Always make sure the participant has enough time to think about their answers. Allow 7 seconds of silence, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.
Avoid asking the participant how they would design the product or service. Understand that it's not the participant's job to solve design problems, and since they likely aren't a designer knowing all the context, they will often suggest unhelpful solutions. It may derail the conversation and lead to discussions on personal or aesthetic preference. Such questions also hint that the object is not perfect and needs more work.
Resources
Guide for user interviews by Rebecca Blakiston