User Interviews
Introduction
User interviews are a fundamental research method for gaining profound insights into users' interactions with products or services. They are conducted with a strategic purpose, aiming to unravel different aspects of user behavior, needs, and pain points.
Insights through Interviews
User interviews gather detailed insights from a select group of participants, and can include:
Category
Description
Example
Attributes
Characteristics: Demographic details, background, or technological proficiency.
Understanding age, education level, and familiarity with digital interfaces.
Behaviors
Interactions: How users navigate and interact with a product or service.
Observing navigation patterns through an e-commerce site or a supermarket.
Preferences
Inclinations: Preferred features, visual aesthetics, or interaction styles.
Identifying users' preferred design elements.
Feelings
Emotional Responses: Frustrations, satisfactions, or moments of confusion during interactions.
Probing emotional reactions to specific design elements.
Attitudes
Perspectives: General views toward technology or specific features.
Attitudes toward new user interface changes.
Opinions
Judgments: Subjective evaluations of usability, aesthetics, or functionality.
Opinions on the clarity of information in an interface.
Knowledge
Understanding: Awareness of features or specific terminology.
Assessing knowledge about new software features.
When to Use User Interviews
User interviews can be used during the Exploratory Phase to gain comprehensive insights into user needs and experiences, during the Validation Phase to test and verify specific aspects of a design, and during the Optimization Phase to improve existing designs based on user feedback.
Exploratory Phase
Gain comprehensive insights and understand user needs and experiences.
Identify users' needs, goals, and pain points for new designs.
Validation Phase
Test and verify specific aspects or functionalities of a design.
Validate design principles and identify potential problems early.
Optimization Phase
Improve existing designs based on user feedback.
Gather insights on current designs to inform enhancements.
Types of User Interviews
There are three different types of user interviews: Structured, Unstructured, and Semi-Structured Interviews.
Structured Interviews
Structured interviews use predetermined, closed-ended questions, ensuring high consistency and comparability. They are ideal when the interviewer is familiar with the topic and time/resources are limited. The strengths include support for quantitative research, reliability, comparability, and time efficiency. However, limitations include restricted clarification, limited scope, response bias, and forced selection of answers.
Unstructured Interviews
Unstructured interviews allow for open-ended responses and flexible conversations to gather rich, qualitative insights. Best suited for exploratory research, they facilitate a deep connection with participants. Strengths include flexibility, participant comfort, and rich data collection. Limitations include low reliability, the need for strong conversational skills, potential bias, risk of getting sidetracked, challenges in data comparison, and time-consuming preparation.
Semi-structured Interviews
Semi-structured interviews blend open-ended questions within a thematic framework, balancing structure and flexibility. Ideal for experienced interviewers in exploratory research, their strengths include versatility, relatively high validity, and the ability to ask additional questions. Limitations are lower validity than structured interviews, susceptibility to biases, the need for good conversational skills, and time-consuming preparation.
Features
Predetermined, closed-ended questions.
No predefined questions, open-ended.
Open-ended questions within a framework.
Ideal When
Need for consistency, limited time/resources.
Exploratory research, deep participant connection.
Experienced interviewers, exploratory research.
Strengths
Quantitative, comparable, reliable, efficient.
Flexible, comfortable, rich data, exploratory.
Versatile, valid, flexible follow-ups.
Limitations
Limited detail, response bias, forced choices.
Low reliability, skill needed, risk of bias.
Lower validity, potential biases, time-consuming.
Practical Application
To effectively use user interviews, select the appropriate type based on your research phase and goals. For example, during the exploratory phase, focus on unstructured or semi-structured interviews to gather rich, qualitative data. In the validation phase, use structured interviews to test specific hypotheses and ensure consistency. Finally, during the optimization phase, leverage user feedback from semi-structured interviews to refine and enhance existing designs.
User Interviews vs. Usability Tests
User Interviews are often confused with usability tests. While they sound similar and are both typically one-on-one, these two methods are very different and should be used for different purposes.
Criteria
User Interview
Usability Test
Purpose
To generate new knowledge about users, their experiences, needs, and pain points.
To assess a design: how it performs, what's not working, and why.
Research type
Attitudinal: Collects participants' reported behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.
Behavioral: Directly observes how users interact with a design.
When used
Empathize stage of the design-thinking model (or in discovery).
Test stage of the design-thinking model (or during product alpha or beta phases).
Design
Absent: Participants don’t review or try a design.
Present: Participants interact with a design.
Facilitator–Participant interaction
More natural interaction: Regular eye contact, facilitators are warmer and approachable.
More rigid interaction: Sporadic eye contact; facilitators avoid being too friendly.
Summary:
User Interviews: Focus on understanding user experiences, needs, and pain points through reported behaviors and feelings. They are used primarily in the empathize stage of design thinking and do not involve participants interacting with a design.
Usability Tests Aim to assess a design's performance by observing users as they interact with it. These tests are conducted in the test stage of design thinking, involving more structured facilitator-participant interactions to avoid influencing user behavior.
Limitations of Interviews
Interviews, being an attitudinal method, collect self-reported behaviors rather than observed behaviors. Some limitations of self-reported data include:
Poor or faulty recollection: Human memory is inherently flawed. Participants might not recall events accurately, especially if they occurred in the distant past.
Missing details: Participants may not know what details are relevant to the interviewer, leading to the omission of important information.
Social-desirability bias: Some participants may alter their responses to present themselves in a favorable light or to meet perceived social expectations.
To understand what users actually do, it is essential to observe their behavior directly or collect data through analytics and other behavioral metrics.
Another significant limitation of interviews is the dependency on the interviewer's skills. Poorly conducted interviews, particularly those with leading questions, can compromise the validity of the collected data.
Conclusion
Interviews are a valuable method for learning about users' thoughts, actions, and needs. However, they should be treated as a structured research study rather than an informal conversation. Setting clear research goals and crafting a well-thought-out interview guide is crucial. During interviews, avoid leading questions and ensure thorough follow-ups. To obtain a comprehensive understanding of users' experiences, complement interviews with observational research methods.
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