User Interviews: The Foundation of Empathy
Before we push a single pixel, we must understand the human on the other side of the screen. User interviews are not just a Q&A session; they are a deep dive into the psychological, emotional, and practical realities of your target audience. You as UX expert should try to do everything in your power to learn about the users and how to solve their problems. Think of yourself as a tailor that is taking all the measurements to ensure the suit will fit perfectly to the body of the customer.
Why Are User Interviews Critical?
In my 20+ years of experience, the number one reason products fail is that teams design for themselves, not the user. What we as designers and developers think is "cool" or "great" might not be what the users are expecting or want the application to work. This is a "feature", not a "bug" is not something that you can pull off easily. Interviews break this echo chamber. They allow you to uncover the "Why" behind user behaviors, whereas analytics only tell you "What" is happening.
Strategies for Conducting Interviews
1. The Art of the Open-Ended Question
Never ask a question that can be answered with a simple "Yes" or "No". Instead of asking "Do you like our checkout process?", ask:
"Can you walk me through the last time you purchased something online? What frustrated you? What delighted you?"
This prompts storytelling, and stories contain the rich qualitative data you need. Also, when you ask for the "last time", you are asking the user for something that could be still fresh in memory and can give you more details about the experience with the task.
2. The 'Five Whys' Technique
Originating from Toyota's manufacturing methodologies, this technique involves asking "Why?" five times to get to the root cause of a behavior or problem. This is a root cause analysis technique that is useful to uncover things that the user might not even think of.
Example:
- User: "I hate this dashboard."
- You: "Why is that?"
- User: "Because I can't find my daily reports."
- You: "Why are the daily reports hard to find?"
- User: "Because they are buried under the 'Settings' menu instead of 'Analytics'."
I always treat the interview as a conversation instead of an interrogation so users feel more confortable while providing feedback. The more confortable they feel with you, the more open they are to answer honest questions instead of what they think you might like.
3. Embrace the Silence
One of the hardest skills for junior researchers to learn is shutting up. When a user pauses, do not jump in to fill the silence. Count to ten in your head. Often, the most profound insights come immediately after a long pause as the user processes their thoughts.
If possible, have somebody of the team to take notes for you because you don't want to appear rude taking notes while the person is talking. Also, during the interview, it is easy to miss writting down on your notes because you were putting attention to the users to know what is the next question to ask and uncover more insights. In addition, if you can record with the permission of the user so you can go back and take notes or confirm any observation, it would be a great idea. Always ask your users if you want to record them and explain how that data will be used and discharged.
Tools of the Trade
- Recruiting: UserTesting, User Interviews
- Recording/Transcription: Otter.ai (excellent for automatic transcriptions), Zoom, Google Meet.
- Synthesis: Dovetail (the industry standard for tagging and synthesizing qualitative research data), Miro, FigJam.