Conducting virtual user interviews in the time of Corona.

Day 2 of my journey working on a wellness app focussed on preserving and re-living positive memories. Read about Day 1 here.

Day 2.

I realised as soon as I started working on this project that we had a unique solution that was solving a real problem. The design team had built a great prototype and tested its usability, and the concept was backed by a lot of research and science.

One question that kept coming up: do we know our users, and what they want?

A few years of user research experience taught me that we really needed to better understand our hypothesis from the perspective of our target market. How much were our users actually struggling with being ‘stuck’ in the negative repeating thoughts? What had they already tried? How did those solutions work out? Was this an actual problem for them? This would help us determine if our solution was addressing the right problem, and whether we were articulating the ‘problem’ in a way that resonated with the people whom we thought it would be relevant for.

Particularly in the ‘wellness’ space — it’s easy to assume everyone wants a better quality of life, and that your scientifically backed solution is what will get them there. But it was important to get the insights, data, and primary research to validate some of our hypotheses before we worked on tweaking the prototype itself.

I sat down with the founder and we iterated on a list of questions we thought would be helpful in us understanding the problem in our user’s words. It was tempting to start asking hypothetical questions about our solution and whether it sounded useful, but it was important for us to focus on the problem and how our users were currently tackling it.

Our first take at user research questions — after 2 interviews, it already changed!

In conducting these interviews and coming up with questions, I watched this YouTube video by Google User Experience researcher Tomer Sharon, which then led me to Steve Portigal’s blog. I also recalled learnings from The Mom Test, and Marty Cagan’s INSPIRED.

We started with a big list of questions (not as many as this, but close) and then refined.

Basic do’s and don’ts of virtual user interviews

1. Think hard about what you’re trying to gain from the interviews and what the information will enable you to do. When first thinking about user interviews, it can be temping to just ‘see how it goes,’ without any specific goal in mind. But it pays off to do your prep ahead of time so you can extract those gold nugget stories you need, while not stressing out the interviewee. By knowing the goal of the user interviews, it allows you to be more flexible and dynamic with how you ask the actual questions. If the interviewee takes the conversation in a different direction, you can still pull out key insights that you need and ask those relevant follow up questions.
2. Avoid hypothetical situations. Ask about specific previous examples of ‘a time when…’ Even if we ask for specific examples, sometimes people default to speaking in general terms: “I usually do X when I’m feeling like Y.” It might be because they are trying to portray themselves in a certain way or because they genuinely can’t think of a certain example. Do your best to try and bring them back to “the last time that happened.” It’s the most effective way to remove bias from their responses, and learn about their authentic experiences.
3. Don’t explain the question or try to provide examples. This is a hard one for me! It often feels like it’s helpful to build rapport and make it easier for the interviewee to know where you’re coming from by sharing examples or explaining why you’re asking a specific question. But we all know it actually biases the person and colours the insights they share. While it might not feel completely comfortable, be at peace with some silence after your question. Chances are the person is thinking or recalling an experience to share something useful. If they’re confused by your question, they will ask for a clarification themselves!
4. Avoid mentioning your solution or share suggestions for how they can address their problems. Oof! Another one where many of us have to naturally bite our tongues. People often want to say: “Oh my god it’s so funny you mention xyz problem, we’re thinking of abc solution that will be such a great fit for you. Does it sound like that might help?” In reality, the interview is not about your solution but rather about learning more about the user and in some cases a specific problem they might be facing. If anything, you’ll want to use the time to learn about OTHER solutions they’re trying to look for gaps in which yours can fit into.
5. Build in time to synthesise your insights before moving onto the next interview. If time allows, give yourself space to digest the conversation and jot down any notes about things that may not be as obvious through just the words the interviewee spoke. Did you notice they asked a lot of follow up questions? That the tone of their voice changed when you asked a specific question? That they closed their eyes during one question but not another? Take the time to write these small details down as they’ll later allow you to refer to a full picture of your interview, and give you the chance to uncover insights you may have missed the first time around.

As we work through user research, we’re also constantly refining our problem statement and the unique ways in which our solution can help. It helps us ensure we’re asking the right questions from our users and staying laser focussed.

I have to admit, user research can be kind of stressful — particularly when you’re using it to try and validate a hypothesis (and you’re not sure if that’s happening!) But sticking with it and just being curious can often allow other insights to emerge that you hadn’t originally anticipated.

Stay tuned! Day 3 will dig a bit deeper into the types of insights we’ve uncovered and how we’re discovering if our solution really matches the problem we think it does.