5 examples of collaborative user interviews — Designing with users

What if your user interviews were less like interviews and more like workshops?

The pitfall with verbal-only user interviews

Let me start with a story… I was interviewing a customer about problems they’ve faced with a specific feature. We were almost to the end when I got a strange sense of doubt…

So I asked, “Hang on.. can you share your screen and show me, specifically, where you’ve experienced this problem?” My fears were confirmed. We had spent the last 20 minutes using the same feature name but talking about two separate things without noticing.

Miscommunication during verbal-only user interviews

That’s when I realized — just like you don’t need to know the names of the streets in the city to get from point A to point B; the users don’t need to know the feature names to benefit from the functionality they offer.

So since verbal communication sometimes isn’t enough, this got me thinking…

How might we get valuable information shared and understood effectively during user interviews?

Collaborative user interviews — the key to effective understanding

For the last year or so, I have been experimenting with user interviews by switching out some question-and-answer sections with small visual tasks.

In this article, I’ll share 5 examples of collaborative user interviews that I’ve tried as a Senior Product Designer in Pipedrive, along with some tips and tricks.

These 5 techniques aim to minimize misunderstandings by keeping the interview visual.

5 collaborative user interview techniques

All the collaborative exercises are done in Miro, but you could use any other collaborative whiteboard app. The only criterion is that interviewees get edit access.

Collaborative user interview technique nr 1 — Sticky note mapping

1. Sticky note mapping

I’ve used sticky note mapping to map out the organizational structure of the interviewee’s company, but it could also be used to map the customer’s steps in a journey.

🕐 Time: ~10 minutes
⭐️ Good for: Mapping user flows, journeys; structure maps
✏️ What you need: Miro board link with some frames, a few empty sticky notes, and instructions
📋 Prototype fidelity: No design needed for this exercise

The exercise in use

The last time I tried out Sticky note mapping was to discover:

1. ❓ Research question
   What does our customers’ sales team’s org structure look like?
2. ⭐️ Research goal
   Understand to what extent our current user management features support the different org structures.

Instead of just asking about their organization structure, I asked the customers to draw it out for me with sticky notes and arrows.

How it plays out

1. 👩‍💻 Get the user to share their screen: “I’d like to do a small exercise with you. Here’s a link to a tool called Miro. Could you open the link, please, and share your screen so that I can see what you see?”
2. 👋 Ease the unknown: “Are you familiar with Miro by any chance? If not, all is good, I’ll walk you through.”
3. 📋 Explain the task: “We in [company name] are looking into [product challenge]. I’ve prepared this exercise to get a realistic view of how our customers experience the challenge. Here’s a page with a few sticky notes on them. I’d like you to use these tools to map out [e.g. your company structure; your steps in solving this problem]. Please start by…”
4. ✨ Watch the magic happen as they fill in the sticky notes for you
5. 🔍 After interviews, bring everything together : As you already have it all on sticky notes, it’ll be very easy to analyze the results of the interviews.

Collaborative user interview technique nr 2— Card sorting

2 — Card sorting

A simple exercise for categorizing information into groups. Most commonly used to design information architecture or menu structure, but its uses can be wider than that.

🕐 Time: ~10 minutes
⭐️ Goal: Categorize information into groups
✏️ What you need: Miro board link, kanban board on a frame, with readymade cards
📋 Prototype fidelity: No design needed for this exercise

The exercise in use

We were bringing a new persona to Pipedrive — those working on Delivery — and wanted to figure out what type of information they need to effectively collaborate with the salespeople in their company.

1. ❓ Research question
   What type of information does this specific persona need to be able to view and/or edit in Pipedrive?
2. ⭐️ Research goal
   Understand what the “must-haves” are for these personas.

So instead of just asking for different pieces of information one by one, I asked users to categorize the information for me.

How it plays out

1. 📋 Explain the task: “We’ll do a small card sorting exercise to understand, what you think [problem] is. Please take a look at these cards and drag and drop them to the stages you think would make sense for your company. As you go through this, please also talk me through your thinking.”
2. ✨ Watch the magic happen as they sort the cards.

🔍 After interviews, bring everything together: As you already have it all on sticky notes, it’ll be very easy to analyze the results of the interviews.

Collaborative user interview technique nr 3— Feature location

3. Feature location

A nice exercise if you’re building a new functionality on top of an existing one and you’re not sure where (in which page, section, etc.) it should be.

🕐 Time: ~7 minutes
⭐️ Goal: Understand where the new feature should be placed
✏️ What you need: Miro board link, with screenshots of some places in the UI, instructions.
📋 Prototype fidelity: No design needed for this exercise

The exercise in use

1. ❓ Research question
   Where would our customers expect to find this new functionality we’re building?
2. ⭐️ Research goal
   Understand where the functionality fits best.

In addition to asking about where they’d expect to find the functionality, I also asked users to map it out for me. I found out that 1/5 interviewees would name one place but actually have a completely different place in their minds.

How it plays out

1. 📋 Explain the task: “Let’s imagine Pipedrive has solved the challenge you’ve been facing. Here are some screenshots of Pipedrive. Where would you expect to find this new functionality?”
2. 🔍 After interviews, bring everything together: you’ll have a nice heatmap

Collaborative user interview technique nr 4— Solution drag’n’drop

4 . Solution drag’n’drop

An exercise to get the users to design their own layout of the page.

🕐 Time: ~10 minutes
⭐️ Goal: Get ideas on the layout of the new page
✏️ What you need: Miro board link, with screenshots of some elements of the UI, one big canvas in the middle, instructions
📋 Prototype fidelity: Little to no design needed

The exercise in use

1. ❓ Research question:
   What functionality/info is relevant to show to users in this view, and in what priority?
2. ⭐️ Research goal:
   Understand what should be the design layout for the functionality

Instead of just asking about what kind of info they’d like to see and why, I asked users to design their own solution.

How it plays out

1. 📋 Explain the task: “Here are some Pipedrive dashboard screenshots. I’d like you to create your own design solution by dragging the pieces where they make sense to you and placing them on the yellow canvas in the middle. Please also talk me through your thinking.”
2. 🔍 After interviews, bring everything together: You’ll have many new ideas about the layout, some of which will be similar, so it’ll be easy to spot trends.

Collaborative user interview technique nr 5— Solution voting

5. Solution voting

An exercise to get quick feedback on multiple design directions.

🕐 Time: ~7 minutes
⭐️ Goal: Get feedback on many design directions
✏️ What you need: Miro board link, with pictures of some design drafts, instructions
📋 Prototype fidelity: Little preparation needed

The exercise in use

1. ❓ Research question:
   Which design direction makes the most sense to users?
2. ⭐️ Research goal:
   Understand which solution has the most potential.

Instead of putting three solutions into one prototype and usability testing it, I asked users to vote on their favorite solution

How it plays out

1. 📋 Explain the task: “Here are some draft solutions to the problem you’ve been facing. Please take a few minutes to look at the 3 versions below. Which of these makes the most sense to you and why? Feel free to drag the stickers to the solution you prefer.”
2. 🔍 After interviews, bring everything together: you’ll have a heat map and a generic understanding of which direction to take.

What can go wrong with collaborative interviews and how to counter the pitfalls

❌ Pitfall 1: Interviewees don’t understand the task you’ve prepared for them.
It can be a bit daunting at first to introduce a new format to your interviews. It’s a new environment and it might be tricky to get the task across with just words.

✅ Mitigation 1: Show, what you’d like them to do.
When you explain the task, always show what you’d like them to do. For example, if you’d like users to fill out sticky notes, fill the first one out yourself while you explain the task just to show what you expect. You can go along and delete that content then so users can start from a blank canvas.

❌ Pitfall 2: Users can’t edit or won’t go along with the task.
Sometimes, the link just doesn’t open for users, or they can’t edit, or maybe they joined from their phone instead of their laptop. Or for whatever reason, the interviewee starts speaking and answering the question but doesn’t write anything down.

✅ Mitigation 2: Complete the task for them and occasionally ask if you got it right
In this case, smoothly note down what they say on the sticky notes, and when they’re done, ask, “Does this look right to you? Would you like to add something?”

3 reasons why collaborative interviews rock

1. You stay on the same page even when words fail you
2. It’s so easy to analyze the interviews later as everything is already documented
3. Customers love it too.

❤️ Here’s my favorite quote from a customer from my first round of collaborative interviews. You can imagine how stoked I was getting this feedback — this is what motivated me to keep going with these experiments.

“This is excellent. I will tell my director that changes are happening rapidly in Pipedrive and I can see you are taking user feedback into account — you’re really getting all that is in my brain and the feedback I have.”

— Pipedrive customer after a collaborative interview