Demystifying User Interviews — A guide to meaningful conversations with your users
User interviews are one of the most tried and tested ways to get valuable user feedback. However, it is not the easiest. A few simple steps can help you conduct interviews that leave you with insights that are deep and impactful.
“ I always wanted to become a doctor and save lives when I grew up. But I was not able to…was not that smart enough I guess. So I took up the job of an IT support agent in a hospital. I am satisfied with what I am doing because I still save lives….by helping doctors do their jobs without having to worry about their tools.”
A user opened up and told me this during a user interview session. This is very special because the user was sharing intricate details of his weaknesses and his journey of finding a way around it. From a researcher’s standpoint that is profound, as I heard this in the course of only an hour long remote interview session.
Stories like these help you cultivate deeper empathy for your users and quickly identify and solve their real-life problems. However, getting users into a comfort zone to share something this personal is difficult.
We, Humans, are a complicated bunch. We never share our fears, insecurities, frustrations, motivations, and inspirations with anyone that easily. These aspects constitute our identity and we are hard-wired to guard our weaknesses and strengths against others. Because by exposing it we assume we become vulnerable and being vulnerable is counterintuitive to our survival.
“A Good user interview enables users to portray themselves as they are instead of who they want to be”
However, breaking the wall is not that difficult. It just needs a small shift in perspective and a lot of patience.
TABLE - A framework for impactful user conversations
TABLE — Trust, Appreciate, Balance, Listen and Empathise.
This framework broadly captures the various aspects and best practices that are necessary for insightful user interviews. So let’s not waste any more time and dwell deeper into them.
Trust
Building trust is the keystone to any honest conversation. As a researcher, it is crucial for you to reassure your participants that there is no right or wrong and whatever they say will not be judged. Value their feedback and make them feel needed. Treat your participants as you would want to be treated. Trust comes with relationships and relationships are built on mutual respect.
Appreciate
Your participants are not obliged to spend time with you and give you any feedback. Appreciate their time and effort by being on time for sessions and informing them in advance about any re-schedules. Don’t push them too much if they seem to get restless, even if you feel like squeezing that last bit of juicy feedback from them. These might seem like basic etiquette, but, if overlooked or ignored, they tend to leave behind a bad impression. Recovering from which might be hard.
Balance
Every conversation that you might have, be it with a user, colleague, friend or family, involves a balance. The scale keeps going up and down depending on the individual and the context of the conversation. For instance, when conversing with a person in authority you might become more apologetic than usual. Your body language also changes and you end up bending forward towards that individual. At the same time if you were the person of authority, you will take up more seating space (spread out your legs maybe), speak more freely and lean backward.
As a researcher, you can consciously allow the balance to tilt towards your participant and help them get into their comfort zone faster.
Listen
Listening is by far one of the most important and difficult skills to perfect. Ensuring your participant is kept engaged with an occasional “hmm..” between sentences and resisting the temptation to interrupt them when they go on tangents is necessary for a successful, deep conversation. The best way to prepare yourself for this is to leave your biases at the doorstep. A user might have understood something wrong but then, remember, it is very important to figure out what lead them towards that interpretation. When faced with such scenarios wait for them to complete and then start probing for details.
Empathise
User interviews can be exhausting. Having to listen intently and wait for that one unexpected insight that might get thrown at you can drain you. But in between all this chaos, if you don’t empathise with your participant enough, you risk losing out on having an honest conversation.
The best way to overcome this is to mirror your participant’s emotions. Laugh when they joke, express your grief when they share their pain and show your excitement when they talk about their achievements and genuinely congratulate them. Make them feel you care and you are there to listen.
Remember, the TABLE framework is just a compass. Improvisation, patience, and dedication to the craft are also equally important for success.
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