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

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

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.

What do you do to prepare for the interviews?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

@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.

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

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

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

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

Will do! We actually have two later today!

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.

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”.

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.

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..

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

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.