Hey guys! I’m a product designer at Managed by Q and am trying to learn what is the best way to approach interviewing users as a designer. Our product team conducts at least 4 - 5 user interviews every week. We are using interviews to test future designs with InVision prototypes, validate new features, and obtain feedback about the product. I'm new to conducting and interviewing users, and I’m curious to know how other product teams approach user interviews. Some of the things I'd love to learn more about include:

Does your team conduct user interviews? If so how frequently and for what purpose?
What are some of the tools you use to conduct and document user feedback?
What are some of the design tools you use to present and test designs?
Who leads the interviews and what is your role (as a designer) in the interview?
What do you do to prepare for the interviews?

Also wondering what books, talks, or resources out there have been helpful.

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August 29, 2017 at 1:35pm

Brandon Houlihan@bhoulihan

1:35pm

What are some of the tools you use to conduct and document user feedback?

1:35pm

Zoom for communication when the interview is conducted remotely. Zoom is great because it has the ability to record the meeting.

1:35pm

Google Slides to help facilitate the interview if you need to show specific examples of things or concepts

1:36pm

If you are conducting a remote interview or test that involves a beta or unreleased build of a mobile application I would suggest utilizing Lookback to observe behavior in the app.

1:36pm

What do you do to prepare for the interviews?

1:36pm

We start by defining goals for the interviews. It’s important to know what type of data you want to collect and what the means to the product/project. These goals will inform the questions you ask.

1:36pm

We create a protocol for all of our interviews and tests. This ensures that we cover everything we need cover during the interview and also serves as a stepped checklist for the interview. Include your questions and tasks (if testing) in the protocol.

1:37pm

We also practice the interview protocol several times internally so we feel comfortable conducting it and then we make any adjustments needed based on the practice.

1:37pm

I hope this is useful and I didn’t blow up this thread too much 😬

August 29, 2017 at 8:42pm

Jason Frade@jfrade

8:42pm

Totally agree that having a plan to start is important. I'm curious though, how do you phrase your learning objectives?

Andrea@sovesove

2:25am

@jason it really depends on the type of test and the stage of your product. What I found most useful is ran a dry-test on your prototype/survey/other-test and ask yourself what can you will be able to understand with the results. If the results of the dry-test are not convincing then maybe you're asking the wrong questions.

2:26am

If you have a more specific example I might be able to help more

August 30, 2017 at 12:53pm

Claudio Vallejo@claudio

12:53pm

Andrea that's great feedback, will take a look at Tomer Sharon's work.

12:56pm

I agree @brandon, creating protocols/scripts and practicing with the team is something I need to work on more. Thanks!

Brandon Houlihan@bhoulihan

1:01pm

@claudio No problem, let us know how the next interview or test you conduct goes!

Claudio Vallejo@claudio

1:10pm

Will do! We actually have two later today!

August 31, 2017 at 2:46pm

Claudio Vallejo@claudio

2:46pm

Led one interview yesterday and shadowed another one. One thing I realized yesterday is that the mood of the interviewee impacts the quality of the feedback obtained through interviews. The customer I spoke with was very happy, was very open, and was willing to explain things in detail. On the other hand the other interview was a bit rushed, the customer was multi-tasking, and wasn't in a great mood and her answers were short and lacked depth. I did prepare a script and entered the interview with a clear understanding with what we were trying to get an insight into, which helped. But at the same time, after listening through the recording, I realized I have to practice my speaking skills, as I stutter and mumble quite a bit. I'm also working on how to best approach remaining flexible within the conversation while also guiding the conversation and knowing how to dive deeply into a particular topic.

Brandon Houlihan@bhoulihan

3:07pm

That is awesome! It’s important to identify areas in the conversation you want to hear more about and ask the participant elaborate further in a way that doesn’t feel confrontational and keeps the conversation flowing. One thing I try to avoid is following up on a participant’s response with “Why”. I think this makes people feel like their answer or response was incorrect. Instead I ask participants “Can you please elaborate on that”.

3:10pm

It also helps to set the expectation early in the interview hat there are no wrong answers and the participant’s opinions is extremely valuable to you. This is especially true if you are conducting a test and asking questions. You want to be clear that you are testing the product, not the participants themselves.

Jason Frade@jfrade

4:37pm

Has anyone explored using the Jobs To Be Done style of interviews? If so, I'm curious what you're experience was like and what you'd do differently to improve..

Effy Zhang@effy

5:09pm

@Jason, my company actually encourage every employee read that book and plan our roadmap based on that methodology

7:38pm

It is not much different with what we currently do. When we see new users signed up, we will ask them what do they hire us for? I have seen patterns that the user use a few software together to run their business, and only use us for one or two particular task. Then that's an opportunity for us either sell other products related to their business, building an ecosystem to empower our user run their business all in one place or thinking about integration with other products.

April 9, 2018 at 3:15pm

Andreia Costa 🇵🇹@andreiafscosta

3:15pm

@claudio I think Michael Margolis has good and quick insights you could check to get you started:

https://library.gv.com/the-gv-research-sprint-start-recruiting-participants-day-1-8fa0bc1c8e71 from the Sprint book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ZG19XTbd4

April 15, 2018 at 3:18pm

Claudio Vallejo@claudio

3:18pm

Thank you @andreiafcosta, will check out the links! Michael is great—several weeks ago our teams had several calls with him for some feedback on our research process, and they were very helpful. Doing good research is hard!

June 11, 2018 at 10:28pm

Terry Fraley

10:28pm

my intel an my facebook page nots work I have tv an phone with u just my intel an my facebook page nots work yet

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