5 Tips to nail your User Interviews (with examples) — UX
I came across many students who are struggling with asking the right questions to their users during user interviews. Hence I have put together some useful tips which I wish I knew in the early stages of my career to ask effective questions in user interviews. These tips would be useful for beginners to do effective user interviews and would help professionals in refreshing their memory.
Role of user interviews in user research
User interviews give insights into what users think about a site, an application, a product, or a process. Data obtained from the outcome of user interviews are always qualitative. This tends to be a quick and easy method to collect user data, so they are often used, especially in lean and agile environments.
A user interview is a UX research method during which a researcher asks one user questions about a topic of interest (e.g., use of a system, behaviors and habits) with the goal of learning about that topic.
Interview goals are the key
Set goals before the start of the interview and the interview questions should revolve around the goals set. Ensure goals that are set are realistic and not too broad.
❌ Example of a poor interview goal:
- Learn about users
✅ Example of a good interview goal:
- Learn the user's typical workday, processes he follows, understand their needs, frustrations they face, expectations they have.
Open-ended questions always start with “why, how, what, describe, explain”. Asking open-ended questions will make the user answer in brief and not in yes or no format.
✅ Examples of open-ended questions:
- Why do you think...
- What do you remember about...
- Tell me about...
The root cause of a problem can be found out if we ask 5 why’s about a topic continuously (digging in). Sometimes we don’t get the right answers to questions we expect, but interrupting the user in the middle of his answers will not only kill his/her motivation to open up but also hides the information we are going to get which we didn’t expect. Ask follow-up questions about the topic to get a better understanding. Go deeper and deeper until you get what you want. But keep the tip 1 in mind when digging deeper.
✅ Example:
- Q1: How do you see your future?
- Follow up Q2: Tell me about your plans to achieve your future goals.
- Follow up Q3: Why do you think you cannot do this as planned?
Leading questions prompts/encourages the answer wanted. By asking a leading question we give the user the idea of what an answer would be. These questions will not let the user think about what he has in mind regarding the question put in front of him.
❌ Example of a leading question (avoid this):
- Was sreeni wearing a white shirt?
✅ Example of non-leading question:
- What was sreeni wearing?
Users start to tell stories when you build a good rapport with them right from the beginning of the interview. Make them comfortable, ask questions that would help them open up and their stories. Stories pave the way for exploring the unknown feelings of the user and help us empathize more.
✅ Example of question provoking story
- Tell me about the last time you had a burnout
Never ask questions that are futuristic and requires the user to predict answers. Answers to these questions are not valuable in anyways and go directly to the trash.
❌ Example of a question about the future (avoid this):
- If this feature gets released, will you use it?
Wow, you’ve made it here 👏🏻 Hope you’ve found the content relatable and helpful to elevate your UX practices. Feel free to spread the knowledge by sharing it with the design community. UNITED WE STAND!
