effective customer interviewing

Effective Customer Interviewing

Lean UX NYC 2013

Adrian Howard (@adrianh) quietstars.com

Hello!

Eh?

Ask questions

Tip: Drink!

?

Stand up

A – B - C

A = SpeakerB = InterviewerC = Observer

Speakers:Shut your eyes

Interviewers:Chat with the speaker about their best restaurant experience.

Observers:Watch what happens. Write observations on post-it notes.

2 minutes

Reflection

B = SpeakerC = InterviewerA = Observer

Speakers:Shut your eyes

Interviewers:Chat with the speaker about their best holiday experience.

Interviewers:One more thing.

Interviewers:After the first question – you cannot speak again. Shhhhh!

Observers:Watch what happens. Write observations on post-it notes.

2 minutes

Reflection

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

- Fran Lebowitz

C = SpeakerA = InterviewerB = Observer

Speakers:Shut your eyes

Interviewers:Chat with the speaker about how they decorate & furnish their home.

Tip:Remember to use silence and body language.

Interviewers:One more thing.

Interviewers:After the first question you can only ask “Can you tell me more about X?”

Interviewers:(where X is something the speaker has previously mentioned).

Observers:Watch what happens. Write observations on post-it notes.

4 minutes

Reflection

Tip:Reflect back what the speaker said.

Every clarification breeds new questions.

- Arthur Bloch

Relax...

?

Interviews ≠ Quiz

Interviews ≠ Survey

Interviews are AI-hard tasks

Rapport

Why do we do interviews?

Steve Blankat Ardent

At the top of his lungs he screamed, “You don’t know a damn thing about what these customers need! You’ve never talked to anyone in this market, you don’t know who they are, you don’t know what they need, and you have no right to speak in any of these planning meetings.”

“I want you out of the building talking to customers; find out who they are, how they work, and what we need to do to sell them lots of these new computers.” Motioning to our VP of Sales, he ordered: “Go with him and get him in front of customers, and both of you don’t come back until you can tell us something we don’t know.”

Learn from customers

Finding customers

Hassling people on the street

Tip: Bribes

Coffee shops

Tip:Don't look scary

Go where your customers are

Sales

Marketing

Customer Support

Online

craigslist

Ethnio.net

Learn from customers

Test our assumptions

1) Learn what?

2) From who?

Exercise time

Today you found a startup!

Exploring exciting new ways to create a great experience

eating out

Helping people have the holiday of

their dreams.

Democratising professional

interior decoration

Build Topic Maps

Individually write down topics on post-it notes

2m

Group and label them as a team

5m

Interviewing

A = SpeakerB = InterviewerC = Observer

Tip: Remember the person.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

5m

Reflection

Interviewing

B = SpeakerC = InterviewerA = Observer

Interviewers & Observers:Both note down speaker's key points.

Tip: Ask open questions.

What was the last book you read?

Can you tell me about the kind of books you read?

5m

Reflection

Interviewing

C = SpeakerA = InterviewerB = Observer

Interviewers:No notes

Observers:Observations vs insights

Tip: Ask for stories.

Can you tell me about the last time...

5m

Reflection

Reflection

Communicating results

Affinity Diagramming

Further Reading

Coming soon

And if you're keen

Ch 7 of "Mental Models" by Indi Young

Ch 10 of "User and Task Analysis for Interaction Design"

Ch 9 & 10 of "User and Task Analysis for Interface Design" by JoAnn T. Hackos, Janice C. Redish

Ch 6 of "Observing the User Experience" by Mike Kuniavsky, Elizabeth Goodman & Andrea Moed

Ch 4 of "Contextual Design" by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt

Bonus Exercise

How do we build a better conference

experience

@adrianhquietstars.com

adrianh@quietstars.com

Thank You