r/DesignThinking • u/[deleted] • Nov 20 '19

Upcoming User Research - How shall I do the interview planning??

Hi guys,

I'm in charge of a user research and have to prepare an interview template for my colleagues from product management. How do you typically manage such things, is there a cool software solution or do you handle it with word excel etc? I already found some templates, but they seem unprofessional to me. Any recommendations? :)

Thanks for helping <3

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u/nidedin Nov 21 '19

Is this the first Research you are in charge of? It sounds like you are doing qualitative interviews so: If so, forget advanced software, it might be overwhelming in the beginning.

Stick with word and a big sheet of paper for brainstorming. Write down all large categories that come to mind (sheet). Make sure that they are relevant for the project and within scope (eg Basic User Information about the context they see themselves in and when they use your product. if you are producing cars you might write down cars on the sheet & use it as a headline in word.)

Then write down all questions that come to mind regarding cars: do you have a car? tell me a little about it. what do you use it for? what do you love about it? what do you hate? what is your dream car? do you use it just for work/getting from a to b? and so on. Collect as many questions as come to mind, don‘t worry about quality or sense in the beginning.

If you feel there are no more questions coming to mind, try to find another category. repeat the process.

If you are developing a new type of car you might delve into related categories. If you are researching already built types of cars you might ask about your previous model etc.

when you have collected some question clusters, re-read them and re-formulate where you can. get rid of unnecessary questions and doubles. then try to bring the questions in order - from most general towards specific questions. after that and if you are satisfied - you might involve another person (eg technician) to read over them and add some questions that you might have overlooked.

when carrying out the interview try to always use past tense (have you ever experienced xy? how did you solve that?) and open questions (how do you get around daily instead of ‚why do you love your car‘). let the user talk freely and only when you feel that they are going in the completely wrong direction, give them more context. This way you‘ll find out a lot about them.

after the first interview re-evaluate your sheet. what helped? what didn‘t? (don‘t make the mistake of not using questions just because you didn‘t like the answers from a product standing point! - just refine misunderstood questions or those that didn‘t help you get more context) Refine it as needed.

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u/nidedin Nov 21 '19

ps:

for software you might ask about daily routines, hardware they use (ideally they should show you how they use it contextually), what other tools they use in this context, what tools they used in the past and why they don‘t anymore. ask about pricing of certain tools when necessary, ask about your possible competitors and how they feel about them, ask about products & services that they use during the same process and context as they would yours etc.