More Than a User Interview

My experience planning and moderating my “first” user interview

“There’s no better way to understand the hopes, desires, and aspirations of those you’re designing for than by talking with them directly.” — IDEOs Design Kit

The very first method of user research that was taught to me in my sophomore year of undergraduate schooling was the user interview. User interviews have been a part of almost every UX project that I have been a part of. However, prior to the day of me writing this post, I had only conducted user interviews for academic or student organization projects.

These past few months I’ve had the pleasure of interning for a local telehealth startup. As their UX intern, I had been given the responsibility of conducting a research study to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the various healthcare providers that use our platform. Of course, what better way to understand someone than to have a conversation with them directly.

The Unexpected Difficulty of Research Recruitment.

My first task was to find and schedule a user interview with one of our partner healthcare providers. With the resources available to me, I was able to get in contact with a local healthcare provider who has been in close contact with one of my marketing/support colleagues. For the sake of confidentiality, I will refer to this healthcare provider as the pseudo-name Dr. Roberts. Admittedly, it wasn’t easy to schedule a time to sit down and talk. As I’d imagine, professionals in the healthcare industry are extremely busy, and seldom have any downtime. It took my colleague and me at least a few weeks finalize a date for the interview.

Even before conducting the interview, I could already tell this would be way more challenging than my experiences in academia. I no longer had the help of a professor to recruit research participants. I was no longer primarily designing for undergraduate students. Immediately, I began to see the differences between college and the real world.

Failing to Prepare is Preparing to Fail.

I spent about two weeks in preparation for the user interview. After realizing the difficulty of simply scheduling a user interview, I wanted to make sure that I made the most out of the time I had with Dr. Roberts. Throughout the past two weeks, I held meetings with colleagues from different departments of the company (upper management, support, marketing, sales, development) to…

• Uncover any assumptions our company had about our user base and our product
• Highlight any pressing questions or concerns my colleagues had about our product and our users

In addition to these internal meetings, I scoured the internet for articles, videos, and other sources of information to learn as much as I could about functional medicine. Additionally, my colleague (let’s call him Mark) was able to fill me in on all of the information he had on Dr. Roberts. The week prior to the interview, Mark and I met to construct an interview skeleton and discuss how the interview would be conducted.

Game Time. The Final Stretch.

In all honesty, the day of the interview was slightly nerve-wracking for me. I had spent the previous night reviewing my notes, highlighting specific questions on the skeleton, and even watching old lectures on contextual inquiry. I felt prepared, but there was something about conducting my first “real” user interview that got my heart racing.

We had scheduled to meet Dr. Roberts at a local coffee shop in the early afternoon. Mark had agreed to be my designated note-taker while I focused on moderating the interview. As I pushed through the coffee shop’s double doors, I immediately located Mark standing with Dr. Roberts. What followed was one of the most rewarding experiences I have had the pleasure of being a part of.

With a smile, I shook Dr. Roberts’ hand. Immediately, I felt the ice begin to break as we quickly started to build a rapport. More and more, I felt the interview turn into a conversation. Dr. Roberts spoke at length in response to my questions, and our talk seemed to seamlessly flow from one topic to the next. As we continued to talk, I felt myself become gradually more fascinated by Dr. Roberts’ responses. In fact, I became so invested in the conversation that I nearly lost track of time. To remain mindful of his time, I decided to cut the conversation at about an hour. By the end of our interview, I had covered all of the topics I aimed to and learned more about Dr. Roberts than I originally planned. Lastly, in compliance with the interviewing best practices that I’ve been taught, I graciously thanked Dr. Roberts for his time, and in response, he encouraged us to stay in touch.

Beauty in the Struggle.

The experience of scheduling, preparing, and conducting my first user interview outside of academia was simply amazing. The process leading up to the actual interview was definitely a beautiful struggle from the recruitment, scheduling, question formulation, and secondary research. From these events, I can confidently say I have a newfound passion for user research. Ever since I began my studies in UX and user-centered design, the aspect of empathizing with various users always intrigued me, but it wasn’t until I conducted this user interview that I realized the significance of really connecting with my users. I can’t even begin to describe how it feels to let your interviewee walk you through their personal goals, lifestyle, and pain points. I’ll admit that I still have a lot to improve on from this experience, but I can confidently say that today has made me a much more confident, passionate, and empathetic UX researcher.