User Interviews in UX Research - Types, Reasons, and 5 Questions Recommended by Harvard Professionals • Slash

It is not easy to determine the potential of your platform unless you have them scrutinized by real people through user interviews. This way, you can understand the strengths and weaknesses of your product idea before investing your resources blindly. You can navigate and match users’ desires, attitudes, and beliefs by interviewing different people on the same topic.
Therefore, this article informs about the meaning of user interviews for UX research and its different types. You will also understand its importance, the steps to prepare interview questions and 5 useful queries you should include in this process. So let’s have user interview reviews comprehensively.

Table of Contents

What Are User Interviews?

User interviewers is a process of conversation in which UX researchers and developers ask questions about a topic from multiple participants. In return, the participants provide answers based on their experience. The method is also known as in-depth interviews, which occur to understand participants’ thoughts about the product idea.
Moreover, these interviews are conducted live in-person or online, and researchers use the output to shape their software solutions accordingly. Besides, the knowledge from users’ answers also helps make an excellent product roadmap strategy. Also, these interviews help software developers to build promising solutions, fulfilling users’ demands.

Also Read: 6 Steps to Create a Good Product Roadmap Strategy

Are user interviews legit? Yes, they are legit and vital for stakeholders and software development firms. You can also utilize the user interviews app and user interviews incentive calculator to pay the participants.

Difference between User Interviews and User Testing

User interviews vs user testing are two different approaches to surveying and getting user feedback. In user testing, UX researchers gather information based on what participants do and say. At the same time, user interviews are based on verbal discussions and participants’ opinions.

Features of User Interviews

The following are the important traits of user interviews:

Always conducted live
Gather qualitative and rich user data
They can be semi-structured or structured
Outputs can be behavioral and/or attitudinal

Types of User Interviews

There are three types of user interviews:

Generative user interviews
Contextual user interviews
Continuous user interviews

a. Generative User Interviews

Generative user interviews are well-structured and provide answers to the most puzzling questions. Generative interviews are usually conducted at the earliest design and development stages, especially when you’re struggling with finding ideas. However, these are not typical brainstorming sessions but proper researchable questions that offer specific and clear answers.

b. Contextual User Interviews

Contextual are semi-structured user interviews in which researchers question participants in their own environment. Since the environment is familiar, users feel comfortable and answers queries without any subconscious pressure of a lab or virtual setting.
Unlike the previous type, these interviews require participants to complete several tasks while answering questions. This may involve usability testing by making the participant interact with a dummy program or shadowing an individual interviewee in their workplace,

c. Continuous User Interviews

In continuous user interviews, companies gather user feedback by interacting with their customers every week. This type of interview intends to collect the experience of user interview participants when exposed to a specific product.
For instance, if you are developing a SaaS product, you may give its access to recruited users from an early stage. With each new development stage, users will interact with new features or changes in the system.
Therefore, you will take continuous user interviews to know their likes and dislikes about the additions or amendments. This process will help you change the current user experience to ensure it matches users’ needs.

Also Read: A Guidebook to SaaS Product Development Process

5 Reasons Why You Must Conduct User Interviews for UX Research

User interviews help find the missing piece of the puzzle so you can continue developing outstanding products. A few reasons why you should conduct interviews are:

1. Idea Validation from the Users’ Point of View

User interviews help verify the success rate of your product in advance. Based on users’ answers, you can rationally assume whether or not your software idea has a future in the current market.

2. Get to Know Your Hidden Competition

One of the greatest benefits of these interviews is knowing what technology and software real people use or prefer. The answers may also provide you with names of old and new players offering a similar product that you didn’t know previously.

3. Explore More Uses of Your Product

When personas interact with your program during user interviews, they check A to Z features of your solution. And sometimes, you get to know other benefits of your product that you didn’t include in the design intentionally.

4. Add More Value to Your Current Design

Likewise, these interview sessions help you identify bottlenecks and missing features from the users’ perspective. You can use this information to develop your existing UX design that increases your product value.

5. Understanding Your Correct Target Audience

Companies like user interviews because they allow them to analyze the right age group, location, and market to launch their product. This saves you the time and money you would spend on unnecessary segments.

3 Key Steps to Prepare for User Interviews

So how do you organise user interviews? Here’s the solution in 3 essential steps.

Step 1: Set Clear Goals

When taking user interviews, you must form a concrete, clear, and concise goal. An ideal interview must help you understand your users’ motivation and behavior. To do that, you must consider the product stakeholders’ demands and their expectations from this session.
Then, you should tailor your interview based on their goals. Most importantly, avoid going excessively broad with your scope. Otherwise, user interviews will collect irrelevant information.

Step 2: Recruit the Right Interviewees

After setting up a goal, you need to work on recruiting for user interviews. Only correct recruitment can lead to correct outcomes. So, find participants that match your goals based on the user persona. If you need to interview multiple user personas, you should decide whether you want to pick them from single or several user groups.
You can source candidates for user interviews through the following:

Street interviews
Personal references
Current or former customers

Step 3: Create Relevant Interview Questions

Make a list of questions that help you get answers. Start your interview with greetings followed by questions that help introduce users. Ask open-ended questions and ignore closed-ended questions as much as possible.

5 User Interview Example Questions for UX Research by Harvard University

Here are the 5 questions examples for user interviews you should include in your next session.

What does your weekday look like?
How much time do you prefer spending on [task/problem]?
What is the huge pain point related to [task/problem]?
What makes you trust this product?
Was there something unexpected or surprising about this product?

Conclusion

An idea can change the world, but only if it’s accepted by the customers, which is only possible through user interviews. User experience plays a vital role in any digital product’s success. A good UX design comprises different characteristics, including user-friendliness, accessibility, and usability. And user interviews help you see your product’s value through customers’ eyes.
At Slash, we design and develop high-calibre digital products catering to your customers’ needs. Our brilliant tech squad conduct pre and post-user interviews so your product has all the heart-conquering features to ensure successful outcomes. Contact us to build leading software solutions using the latest tech stack and agile principles.

Q1. What and how do user interviews pay?

Typically, user interviews pay around $10 to $50 per session. The payment is transferred to the participants through direct bank transfers or PayPal depending on the platforms.

Q2. Are user interviews safe?

Yes, user interviews are safe. In fact, many companies ask participants to sign an NDA to prevent information leaks.

Q3. What is the duration of user interviews?

The maximum duration of user interviews is 60 minutes.

Q4. What is the minimum number of participants in user interviews?

There should be at least 5 to 7 participants in user interviews.

Q5. How many user interviews do you need?

Generally, most UX researchers get answers after 6 to 12 user interviews.