Interview Tips
A few tips to help you have a great user interview.
Published in
2 min readJan 19, 2018
- Be friendly, curious, and humble.
- Nod, smile, and keep good eye contact. Show you are interested in them.
- Give yourself a 5 to 10 minute buffer at the beginning of your interview so both you and your participant can warm up and get a bit more comfortable. But pay attention to whether your participant is engaging, some people don’t like small talk.
- Remember that you are speaking with this person to get their perspective. You should be mostly listening, not talking or explaining.
- Be prepared. Practice. Practice. Practice. Get familiar with your questions and objectives, so that you don’t have to constantly refer to your guide.
- If possible, research your participant a little so you can a better understanding of them.
- Start out broad then get more specific, in both the general interview and your questions. For example, start with questions that make the person comfortable and are easy to answer. Ask detailed questions later in the interview.
- Encourage participants to SHOW you things, as much as possible. For example, if someone is talking about a really fun event, ask them if they have a picture they could show. If they’re talking about clutter on their phone, ask them to point it out to you on their phone.
- Prompt folks to expand on answers — “Would you tell me more about that?” “ Could you describe that a little more?”
- Reference earlier parts of your conversation and follow up — “You mentioned _____; why is that important to you?”
- Try to touch on all the topics, but don’t rush someone. Feel free to stay on a topic and learn a little more.
- Avoid leading questions. Don’t presume something about the participant or their answer before asking it.
— Leading: “So tell me about why you love _____?”
— Not Leading: “Tell me your thoughts on ______?” - Always record your sessions.
- Start a timer the moment you start recording.
- Create time estimates for each section along with the actual clock time so you reference it easier.
- Always end at or before the scheduled time.
- Notes can be useful, but mainly keep focused on the conversation. Instead, when you hear something really interesting, jot down the time so you can find it in the audio later.
- Sometimes sessions are not awesome, so don’t be afraid to end it, if you need.
