Conducting User Interviews (+ 10 Non-Leading Questions for Website Feedback)
We recently busted the myth that user research needed to be a complicated and expensive process for your company. So today we want to give you an easy starting point as you embark on your bootstrap journey into user research with user interviews. We’ll start by giving you some background information on user interviews, what makes good user interview questions, and who you should interview before sharing 10 questions you can use for your very own user interviews for insightful feedback on your company’s website.
What is a user interview?
A user interview is one of many research methods typically used in User Experience Design (UX Design) wherein an interviewer engages in a conversation with a user about their experience and interaction with a particular product or service. Typically, user interviews are one-on-one interactions between a team member or consultant of the company that represents the product, and a current user or potential user that fits the target audience for that product or service. While a user interview is an “interview,” they should feel more comfortable than a stereotypical question and answer session. We've had success doing them via video meeting platforms, such as Zoom and Webex, for our clients, so there’s no need to be in person as long as both individuals have access to a desktop/laptop and can both view any necessary materials in real-time (aka share screen, etc.). The point of a user interview is to gain depth and insights into the users behaviors, attitudes, and feelings about the product or service. With this in mind, quality conversation is more valuable for a user interview than shallow or more surface-level user feedback (it goes without saying, be sure whoever is doing them for you represents your company professionally). User interviews are not the be-all-end-all of user research and can be combined with observational research, surveys, usability testing, and many other research methods, but are a great way for stakeholders to engage with their users first hand and can be an essential method of gathering feedback about a key product or service. This makes user interviews an incredibly valuable tool for both Product Design and Business Strategy.
What makes a “good” user interview question?
A “good” user interview question is one that yields unbiased results (or at least as unbiased as you can get them), makes the user feel comfortable and open to sharing honestly, and ultimately leads to a productive insight for your product or service. In order to achieve these things, user interview questions should be:
Non-leading. This means you don’t give your user a push towards a particular answer. For instance, asking a user “Did you think the navigation of the website was confusing?” is a leading question because it may encourage the user to place undue emphasis on whether or not they in fact thought the navigation was confusing. Instead, saying “Tell me about your experience with the navigation of the site” will open the dialogue up for the user to discuss a number of feelings they may have had towards the navigation, rather than just only focusing on whether or not it was “confusing.” This is probably the most vital aspect of crafting sound user interview questions: questions should be as exploratory, non-leading, and unbiased as possible.
Open-ended & single-barreled. Two important features of a good user interview question are that it should be both open-ended and not include more than one objective. While that might sound contradictory, what we mean is that users should not be able to answer the question in a simple yes or no–remember, this is an interview not a survey so you’re looking for depth here. With that in mind, questions should also only address one aspect of a user’s behavior or attitudes at once. In other words, you, as the interviewer, should only have one objective per question. For instance, asking a user “How often do you visit the site and how much time do you spend per visit?” should really be broken up into two separate questions, one about frequency and one about duration.
Relevant & recent. First, your question should be relevant to the objectives that you’ve set for your user research. You have a limited amount of time with each user, and you should be making the most from each question you have the chance to ask. Secondly, you should make sure that you only ask users about recent events–preferably no further back than a few days at most. Human behavior is hard to predict even for humans who are trying to predict their very own behavior. Your users likely won’t give you a 100% accurate description of something that happened to them 2 weeks ago, and most definitely will not be giving you an accurate prediction of what they will feel/think/do 2 weeks in the future. (P.S. You can always go back to your interviewees after product/website updates for a revised perspective!).
Non-provocative. This one is pretty straightforward, but we want to mention that asking a user a question that may make them uncomfortable or one that challenges one of their core values will usually lead to an unproductive response as the user is less likely to be as honest as they would be in a more comfortable situation. In other words, the more emotionally charged your user becomes, the less insightful the answers you’ll receive become.
Organic. This point is much more about how you ask the question rather than what you’re actually asking, but it’s really important to make sure that you’re phrasing and delivering questions in an organic and natural way. A monotone voice, overly-professional tone, or unnatural speaking rhythm is less likely to prompt a natural and honest answer from your user.
Accompanies the Product/Website/Prototype. User interviews can be more informative if you and the user are actually interacting with the product as you go. This may not apply for services, but you can still use visual assets that represent your services if that’s applicable for your business. For example, if you’re asking a question about the website’s navigation, it’s a good idea to have that navigation pulled up, or to ask the user to play around on the site beforehand. A product or prototype isn’t required for user interviews, but we’ve found it to be incredibly valuable to have the website we want feedback on pulled up for the user as we ask questions, for instance. Keep in mind that if you don’t have a product or prototype at the ready, your users’ answers may say more about what they predict their experience will be rather than what it currently is. Usability testing is also a great way to learn more about user interactions with a product, website, etc., but it’s also okay to give the user some hands-on experience during user interviews to better inform their responses.
Who should I interview?
Simple answer here: you should interview members of your target audience. It’s a common misconception that it’s most important to interview people outside of your circle (aka people you’ve never met, have no connection to, etc.), but we often forget that it matters a lot more that we’re actually getting feedback from our audience. This can mean current users, or potential users that fit the user personas for your company. In an ideal world, you would be able to hit both benchmarks and interview members of your target audience that you don’t know. However, we know that this can be a deterrent to research for many entrepreneurs who are just starting out so we want to stress that you absolutely can interview people in your network so long as they fit the criteria for your target audience. The more degrees of separation you can get between yourself and your interviewee the better, but it can still be meaningful to interview your friend’s friend who fits your mold for your target audience.
Additionally, it’s important to interview members of your target audience from a diverse range of backgrounds and demographics. This can mean race, ethnicity, gender, age, education level, geographic location, language, and more. Being mindful of diversity in your user interviews will not only give you a wider breadth of responses to your interview questions, but can promote a more accessible design for your product or service.
P.S. Don’t forget that you only really have to do 5 meaningful and in-depth interviews for statistically significant results! Read our full blog post here for more information on user research at a broader level.
What questions should I ask?
To help give you an idea of what questions you can ask during user interviews, we’ve compiled a list of 10 sample questions you can ask to get feedback on your website through a user interview. Remember that usability testing and user interviews are different (we recommend both, so keep an eye out for an upcoming blog post on usability testing as well), and that the goal of these questions is to garner a deeper understanding of the user experience of the website. Keep in mind that it’s okay to go off book with user interviews! If a user gives you an answer that interests you, feel free to go down that road and find out more with some follow-up questions. You can almost never go wrong by asking, “Can you tell me more about that?” Yes, you should keep on track and make sure you get your key questions answered before your time with that user is up, but it’s equally important that the conversation feels natural and that you leave feeling like you have a better understanding of your users’ experience than when you started.
For these questions, let’s say you’re interviewing a member of your target audience but not a current user. You have the website in question pulled up and the interviewee has had a chance to play around on the site before your interview, but is also free to navigate the site during the interview.
What are your thoughts about the homepage?
Let’s say you just landed on the homepage, where would you go next?
Walk me through how you would find out what services (or products) we offer.
Talk to me about your experience on the “x” service page.
Can you describe how you would contact us?
Tell me about your experience navigating around the site.
What do you think about the images (design, graphics, videos, etc.) on the site?
How would you describe this website to a friend?
How would you describe your experience with the website overall?
Is there anything you would like to add?
We hope you’ve learned enough to feel confident embarking on your own user interview journey, and repeating that process again, and again, and again…you get the idea. We’d love to hear what your experience is like with user interviews for your organization! Feel free to email us at letschat@enticedge.com or message us on Instagram to get in touch!
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