The art of interviewing users: What i have learned from over 100 user interviews
How I approach user interviews
Over the last few months I carried out probably around 50 user interviews this year, yes that was a lot of hours spent analyzing and taking notes afterwards, super grateful to all the partners I have worked with who have assisted me through this process, but a key thing I was thinking through is in essence how do you conduct the perfect insight extracting process that you can consistently run again and again. The conclusion I have come to is you cannot, there are way too many variants in every interview, your internet connection, the participant’s mood, their experience that means every user interview will be different and so there is no perfect insight extraction process you can have every single time. However one thing I have learned over the last few months is that there is a set of practices and a range of techniques you can use to give yourself the opportunity to learn as much as possible regardless of the participant you are speaking to. Let's start off with the basics:
Stack rank your goals
This seems fairly obvious and it is but what I mean by ‘stack rank your goals’ is understand in any user interview there are a range of likely things you are trying to establish and understand from your users but understand an interview is not purely an opportunity to get your questions answered but also an opportunity to listen, so you should truly be having 1-2 core goals that encapsulate what you really want to understand, anything more than 2 and just understand with a 30 minute interview will be extremely tight.
The art of the awkward silence
Awkward silences are not something I typically experienced in professional engagements, but the nature of any interaction with a complete stranger is there are bound to be points of silence, sometimes awkward, sometimes just perfectly acceptable silence, get comfortable with it, do not try to fill it. That space between when you ask a question and when you get a response from a participant, should be digestion time, digestion of what they just said and understanding how their last response either relates to your initial goal or whether it represents a new branch of discovery to go on, be very mindful of this step, it is where a lot of the discovery is made.
The sooner the analysis the better
We are all busy and so inevitably after the user interview, we have other tasks to attend to, it is important to take some time before the analysis or debrief but my advice is to carry out analysis not more than a few days after your user interviews for two reasons, firstly the closer you are to the interview the less you have to rely on the power of your memory which likely means you misremember key important aspects of the interview.
Do not take notes
I feel very strongly about this, except if you are a Jedi level multitasker, you probably should not try to take notes, listen and ask questions at the same time, it is an impossible mission, if you have a colleague joining you asking them to help take some notes is ideal, if that is not possible, it is best to watch the recorded conversation afterwards and take notes, trying to do both at the same time means inevitably not truly listening to the participant.
Ask "why is that important to you and what is the consequence of that problem"
Like every painter has a favorite toolbrush, I have also developed my favorite questions to ask. Often when identifying a user problem, understanding the intensity of the pain or the core job the user is trying to solve for is extremely important. I find asking participants what the consequence of a problem is a key way to both understand the core pain as well as the motivation behind it. By digging into why a particular issue matters to the user and how it impacts their life or work, I gain crucial perspective. This helps me determine which problems should take priority in the design work. It also uncovers the emotional context and broader significance tied to certain pain points.
