5 Steps to Create Good User Interview Questions By @Metacole — A Comprehensive Guide

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5 Steps to Create Good User Interview Questions By @Metacole — A Comprehensive Guide

  • User interviews enable you to:
    • speak directly to your users
    • have specific questions answered
    • uncover previously unknown details and directions
  • Badly scripted questions can:
    • result in biased questions and therefore biased answers
    • lead to a flawed foundation to product and business decisions

1. Start with a problem statement

  • What are the questions you want answered?
  • Create a list of all the questions you need answered to gain better understanding

2. Reframe the problem statements

  • Rephrase the questions from different perspectives:
    • logical/rationale-driven
    • emotion/desire-driven
    • product/consumer-focused
  • Benefits:
    • uncovers additional opportunities to learn about your users, specifically those you hadn’t previously considered
    • creates the foundation of your interview questions

3. Develop your questions

  • Avoid leading questions
    • Leading questions will influence the answers you receive from you interviewees
    • They infer that something is true where it might not be
  • Avoid speculative questions
    • if asking about the past, be as specific as possible
    • speculative questions invite interviewees to fill in the gaps or completely invent a scenario
    • aim for genuine and insightful data
  • Ask open-ended questions
    • open-ended questions invite interviewees to add details around the central theme
    • answers to open-ended questions unpack invaluable information that would otherwise be undiscovered by a more specific question
  • Ask multiple questions to inquire about one thing
    • offers an opportunity to verify that you’ve understood the interviewee and check for contradictions
    • avoid asking these questions concurrently, instead pick a the next natural moment in the flow of conversation
    • data triangulation{:target="_blank"} can also help
    • Avoid asking if an interviewee would purchase or use the product
      • this is an uncomfortable position for your interviewee to be put in and they will probably say “yes” even if they don’t mean it
      • instead, ask about their intent to purchase{:target="_blank"}

4. Be prepared to paraphrase your questions

  • it’s possible an interviewee won’t understand your question
  • being prepared to rephrase a question will keep the interview flowing

5. Add structure to your question list

  1. Introduction
  • put the interviewee at ease by explaining the purpose of the interview and where the data is going
  • avoid explainig too much to maintain natural responses to questions
  • Thank the interview for attending and introduce yourself
  • keep the introduction brief
  • ask permission: audio and video recording, photos etc
  1. Warm up
  • ask 3-5 generic questions
    • occupation/what’s an average day like?
    • hobbies
    • internet usage
  1. Main
  • ask as much as possible
  • start with specific past events then speculative questions
  • ask questions that suit the conversation, introduce the theme then dig deeper
  1. Wrap up
  • make it clear that the interview is over
  • ask if they have any questions
  • thank then for their time and contribution

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