interviewing people for user experience design research
DESCRIPTION
We interview people in all sorts of different research activities such as card sorting, usability testing or contextual inquiries. What we should be focused on, more than anything else, is listening. Listening deeply helps us look at someone's experience through a lens of empathy and sheds new light on different opportunities to improve their experience. Listening to find empathy is a skill that anyone can learn with practice. Discover how to bring people's stories to the surface and uncover the right level of detail to develop keen insights. Whether you are a researcher, information architect or developer, you should always look for opportunities to interview your users. How you approach that interview can make all the difference in what you learn about that person's experience. About the Speaker: Brian Winters, the Director of Design Research at Manifest Digital, is accomplished in all facets of design research and development UX strategies. He is skilled at understanding the explicit and latent needs of users and evangelizing those needs to business stakeholders. Brian has strong leadership, communication and user advocacy skills. Brian’s specialties include: ethnography, design research, user studies, mental models, Morae user testing software, Site Catalyst, Unica, Balsamiq. Here’s how he describes his job: “I study how people use things like using web sites or devices. Then I try to redesign what people are using so it’s easier for them to accomplish their goals.”TRANSCRIPT
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Interviewing People
NOVEMBER 12, 2013
Listening
to
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What we’ll discuss today Types of Research
The agenda
The Interview
Interview Tips & Tricks
"Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand." - Karl A. Menninger
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Why we interview
We talk to people to gain a better understanding of them, their context and what they need to accomplish their goals. The data we uncover feeds into our design decisions and uncovers new opportunities.
Their Experience
Stories
Emotion
Connections
Shared Experience
Empathy
Reframes
Possibilities
Customer Advocates
It’s not just about pain-points, it’s about insights
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Types of research
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“The more you can think and feel like a customer the better you can imagine what services to offer them.”
Indi Young
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Research typesGENERATIVE EVALUATIVE
Definition Understanding of the mental environments in which people evaluate our products and services.
Assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of the the solutions that help people accomplish their goals.
Business Questions
• Why do people not use our service?• How do people use our products
& why?• How do we leapfrog our
competitors?
• How do I improve my navigation?• What is our conversion rate?• How do we get greater wallet-
share?
Research Types
• Customer Interviews• Contextual Inquiry• Ethnography• Customer Diary
• Usability Test• Search Analytics• Customer Feedback• Card Sorting
engagement optimization
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Increase engagement
Types of research
What is it that we are missing? How can we find new opportunities to engage customers and delight them?
Generative
Focuses on peoples’ experiences and not just what they prefer in a product or service
Participant guides the conversation with simple prompts from the moderator
Sets the stage for them to tell their stories
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Optimize current state
Types of research
Can people figure it out, use all the interactions, and finish their task in a reasonable amount of time and effort?
evaluative
Uncovers where we can optimize the experience for people
Typically a task-based, question and answer session, especially for usability testing
Most common form of research and the easiest to do
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Merge techniques
Generative(engagemen
t)
Evaluative (optimization)
Research
scope
Follow the conversation
When we combine generative interview techniques with evaluative studies, we can get more from each session. Gone are the days of in-person pass/fail usability studies.
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The interview
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“Check your worldview at the door.”
Steve Portigal
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Listen with purpose
The interview
Deep listening can bring forth the most interesting parts of the stories people tell us about their experiences.
Listen much?
Selective Listening
THEM
YOU
ActiveListening
YOUTHEM
Empathic Listening
A New Perspectiv
e
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Keys to insights
The interview
Set the stage for a rich exchange and you will find unexpected insights
RAPPORT
Helps people feel comfortable with you in conversation
Removes a laboratory or research-feel to the interview
Builds some trust between two people who are strangers
Allows emotions, rich detail and other important ideas to surface
Invites the stories people have to tell about their experiences
Empathic listening
Demonstrates you are really listening to them
Merges your frame of reference with the other person’s to develop a brand new perspective
Illustrates motivations and goals
Focuses the on people’s experiences and not preferences
Uncovers the Why
stories
Provides rich detail and emotions for an experience
Captivates the attention of others
Longer shelf-life than a report
Powerful illustration of what someone is going through
Easily shared
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Skills & Tips
Eye-contact with a smile
Pre-interview introduction
Make small talk
Look for social cues
Open body language
Rapport
The interview
"There's a big difference between showing interest and really taking interest.” - Michael P. Nichols - The Lost Art of Listening
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Skills & Tips
Be interested
Open body language or leaning in
Whole body listening, especially your heart
Paraphrase
Ask Why
Remember details
Don’t analyze or judge
Empathic listening
The interview
“So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) spiritual philospher
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Skills & Tips
Provide context or a scenario
Listen deeply
Silence
Dig for details
Ask story-leading questions
stories
The interview
Flickr: Courtesy of imageining
“Until you hear a story and can understand that experience, you don’t know what you are talking about. There has to be a person’s story that you hear, where finally you get a picture in your head of what it would be like to be that person. Until that moment you know nothing, and you deal with the information you are given in a flawed way.”- Ira Glass, This American Life, speaking at GEL 2007
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Interviewing tips & Tricks
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Be an Explorer
Interviewing Tips & Tricks
Conversation
Discovering the unexpected
What is important to them?
What is said…..not said
Focus on people’s experiences
Every interview is unique
Explore motivations & goals
Silence
Dig for details
It’s not just an interview, it’s a Listening safari.
“Listening looks easy, but it’s not simple. Every head is a world.” ~Cuban Proverb
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Better Interviews
Interviewing Tips & Tricks
Simple techniques to startWhether you are talking to a research participant, or a client, you can use some of these techniques to improve data gathering and understand where someone is coming from.Question Starters• Who• What• When• Why• How
Actually CareIt shows, so make people feel heard.
Don’t PraisePraise conditions the participant to look for more praise. They want to please you.
Do Not LeadLeading questions usually start with one of these words; • Do• Could• Should• Would
Practice, Practice, PracticeInterviewing (listening) is a skill like anything else. If you don’t use it you lose it
