Speaker A
Hi, welcome everyone. I'm so happy that you're joining me today. So, let's jump right in. We only have an hour.
Learn how to conduct effective user interviews in UX design, covering why, when, and how to use qualitative research for better user insights.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
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Key Takeaways
- User interviews are a key qualitative research method to understand user motivations and behaviors.
- Effective user interviews require clear research goals and well-defined research questions.
- User interviews are most valuable at the beginning and end of the design thinking process.
- Qualitative research allows for deeper insights through follow-up questions, unlike surveys.
- Screening and selecting relevant user segments is crucial for meaningful interview results.
What the video covers
- Introduction to user interviews as a fundamental part of UX design and qualitative user research.
- Explanation of qualitative vs quantitative user research and their distinct purposes.
- Importance of user interviews at key stages of the design thinking process: early empathy and late usability testing.
- How to prepare for user interviews by defining research goals and research questions.
- Differences between surveys and user interviews, highlighting the benefits of follow-up questions in interviews.
- Overview of various user research methods beyond interviews, including A/B testing and eye tracking.
- Tips on conducting user interviews, including screening participants and focusing on relevant user segments.
- Live demonstration of a user interview to apply theoretical concepts in practice.
- Addressing common criticisms of qualitative research in data-driven environments.
- Encouragement to engage with questions and interactive learning during the webinar.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Overview of User Interviews
- 05:21Qualitative vs Quantitative User Research
- 10:51Complexity and Methods of User Research
- 16:47Surveys vs User Interviews
- 22:05Preparation: Research Goals and Questions
- 33:00Case Study: User Interview for a Dating App
- 38:38Live User Interview and Practical Tips
- 43:05Challenges and Considerations in User Research
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
and currently i'm working as a product designer at Zalando and today i'm gonna teach you some of the fundamental parts about UX design which is user interviews now what will we learn today we'll talk about the why the when and how about user interviews
Speaker A
Jakub already introduced CareerFoundry. A little bit about me: I am a CareerFoundry graduate. I started studying UX with CareerFoundry in 2017.
Speaker A
some tips on how to conduct a user interview and then near the end we'll have a live user interview where you can see all the things that i'll teach you put into practice and of course in the end
Speaker A
Currently, I'm working as a product designer at Zalando, and today I'm going to teach you some of the fundamental parts about UX design, which is user interviews.
Speaker A
have two different kinds of user research you have the qualitative part and the quantitative part and the qualitative user research focuses on the why so user interviews are a part of qualitative user research and they try to find out the motivations and the behaviors of your users
Speaker A
Now, what will we learn today? We'll talk about the why, the when, and how about user interviews.
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two points where it's very important first off in the beginning of the design thinking process where you're trying to understand your user where you trying to empathize with your user and this is also the moment where user interviews are really important then near the end of the design thinking
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We'll talk a little bit about user research, about the differences between surveys and user research, and then I'll go into a very hands-on part of this webinar where I'll teach you how to write research goals, research questions, how to write an interview guide, and I'll also give you
Speaker A
from your users and to show you the complexity of user research i showed this image that i got from the and group which shows a whole overview of all the kinds of user research that exists so user interviews are only one method that you can use and that's the one that we'll be focusing on today
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some tips on how to conduct a user interview. Then, near the end, we'll have a live user interview where you can see all the things that I'll teach you put into practice. And of course, in the end,
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when you're starting to work in companies that are data driven that are driven by numbers there might be criticism about qualitative research because they're not expressed in numbers so why would you need qualitative research like i already said before qualitative research
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we'll also have some time for your questions. So, if you have any, then note them down. We can answer those near the end. So, first off, let's talk a bit about user interviews.
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and the good thing about qualitative research and user interviews in particular is that they allow room for follow-up questions when you're doing a survey you just send out the survey to many different people and you don't have the chance to talk to them personally
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Now, user interviews are a part of a bigger element of UX design, which is called user research, and you have two different kinds of user research. You have the qualitative part and the quantitative part.
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already sufficient to talk with for example five different people whereas with a survey you have to reach out to many different people thousands of people to get a statistically correct number now i already talked a bit about what the differences are between user interviews and
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The qualitative user research focuses on the why. So, user interviews are a part of qualitative user research, and they try to find out the motivations and the behaviors of your users,
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it's unmoderated so you create a survey and you send that out to many different people and that generates less time at upfront because you just send out the survey and you don't have to take care of it at that moment people can just answer it it's asynchronous
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whereas quantitative research focuses way more on how many. So, in that case, you're talking about statistics, about surveys, and it's less about what people think but how many people think a certain thing.
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follow-up questions so you have to make sure that the questions that you ask in your survey they're well thought out because you won't have the chance to moderate it later on and another thing that is related to that is that in a survey you don't have the chance to
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Now, you can conduct user research during the whole design thinking process, but there are two points where it's very important. First off, in the beginning of the design thinking process,
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the goal of your research so never just jump into an interview and think of some questions that you want to get answered it takes a bit of preparation work and it all starts with a research goal the research goal is the purpose of your research it answers the question why are we doing this
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where you're trying to understand your user, where you're trying to empathize with your user, and this is also the moment where user interviews are really important. Then, near the end of the design thinking
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be turned into actions it also helps you to know the why and the what before deciding on the how so what might happen is that you think about a research goal you define the scope you know what you want to find out what the purpose is and then you come to the conclusion that user interviews
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process, when you have a prototype and you want to test this, this is also an important point to talk with your users, and you will probably do that in what we call a usability test. So, in that
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and another important hint here is that a research goal is never formulated as a question so it's formulated as a sentence for example in the case that we're going to use today we're going to talk about a dating app so the purpose of an user interview that we conduct in this context might be
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case, you will have a prototype that you want to get tested, and you're asking for feedback from your users.
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so in combination with the research goal you also want to define research questions these are the questions that explain what are you trying to find out so what do you intend to learn and these questions are not the ones that you would ask your users but it's more the ones that you would ask
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And to show you the complexity of user research, I showed this image that I got from the And Group, which shows a whole overview of all the kinds of user research that exist. So, user
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instead of thinking we're going to do a user interview and already jumping into the questions that you want to ask your users you're first going to take a step back and think about what is the purpose and what do we intend to learn and these research questions they oftentimes begin
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interviews are only one method that you can use, and that's the one that we'll be focusing on today, but you also have A/B testing, eye tracking, you have interviews that are with people at home,
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later on when we start with the live interview i will guide you through the research goals and research questions so that you get a bit of a feeling of how that might work now when you find out the research goals and the research questions
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so there are many different ways on how you can connect with your users and better understand them. Now, the benefits of qualitative research, they're very important to know, especially
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so they give you requirements for the screening of people and this is very important because not all users are the same when you're doing a user interview you might want to think about a certain segment a certain group of your users and this group needs to be relevant
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when you're starting to work in companies that are data-driven, that are driven by numbers. There might be criticism about qualitative research because they're not expressed in numbers. So,
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exactly one-on-one the same as your whole user group it can be as a part of that a smaller part now when you have your research goals your research questions you know that you want to conduct a user interview you even already found people that you want to interview
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why would you need qualitative research? Like I already said before, qualitative research really helps us to understand the why of our users. It helps us to understand behaviors,
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you're doing a user interview it will take maximum an hour i've only in once been in a user interview that took longer that took one and a half hours and that was only because we were very deeply diving into the psychology of our users but normally interviews are between 30 minutes
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motivations, and opinions, and this is something that cannot be expressed in numbers, but it is really essential to how people experience, for example, an app or a website.
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want to allow yourself some room for follow-up questions because an interview should feel like a conversation and imagine when you're talking to a friend of yours you might have some idea of what you want to talk about you might have some idea on what you want to ask your friend
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And the good thing about qualitative research and user interviews in particular is that they allow room for follow-up questions. When you're doing a survey, you just send out the
Speaker A
so use your research goal and your research questions as a foundation for that so to summarize key questions are the most important questions that you want to ask your user your interviewee now when you want to write your interview guide there are many different ways how you can do this
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survey to many different people, and you don't have the chance to talk to them personally.
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beginner and you're going to prepare your first interview guide is to what i would like to do write down a whole script write down what do you want to say so think about an introduction think about your key questions think about some follow-up questions that you might want to ask
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And when you're doing a user interview, you do have the chance to talk with them personally, so you do have the chance to dig deeper and to ask follow-up questions.
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my interview guide or my script i just use that as some memory in my mind as something to hold on to but i try to keep that natural and i try to keep that guide as a anchor point but not as a script
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And another benefit of user interviews compared to surveys is that you only need few people, so it's already sufficient to talk with, for example, five different people, whereas with a survey you have
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but then also be okay with letting it go you don't have to follow everything word by word it is just there for you as an anchor point now like i already said before leave room for follow-up questions and one
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to reach out to many different people, thousands of people, to get a statistically correct number. Now, I already talked a bit about what the differences are between user interviews and
Speaker A
unnatural because you're asking your interviewee why why did you think this but why and why but this really helps you to get to the core of what someone is telling you it really helps you to understand their motivations and their opinions now what you also want to do and this might be a
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surveys, but to summarize them once again: a survey is a more generic insight from a big group of people. You're getting statistics like 60 percent of people like a red button
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as a closed question so for example a closed question and or use case of dating apps could be do you like tinder your user can only say yes or no to that and the problem with this is that
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or 75 percent think this and that, and that's the benefit of a survey.
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invites the interviewee to really answer and think about that question deeply and it really starts the conversation it gives you way more room to ask follow-up questions later on now what you also want to avoid are leading questions or how i would call them questions that
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It's unmoderated, so you create a survey and you send that out to many different people, and that generates less time upfront because you just send out the survey,
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our user or interviewee the feeling that we're judging them we want to create an open space where ideally they are doing most of the talking and we're only guiding them with asking a question just sometimes but we want to hear them talk most of all so try to ask questions that aren't
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and you don't have to take care of it at that moment. People can just answer it. It's asynchronous.
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and then that allows you to ask more why is that your experience what makes you feel like that how could the experience be positive what could have made the experience be less positive so to summarize you want to formulate some key questions that you use as a foundation and they
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Whereas with user interviews, you have to invest time. You have to actually talk with these people. You have to prepare an interview guide, so this is way more time intensive.
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now comes the exciting part which is what do you do when you have to conduct the actual user interview and i can tell you the first times that i was doing a user interview i was so nervous i
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Now, the cons of surveys is that you don't have a chance to follow a question, to ask follow-up questions, so you have to make sure that the questions that you ask in your survey
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then you might know this feeling of oh i now have to talk to someone i've never met and i want to make a good impression and on top of that you're interviewing them so that makes it even more challenging so here are some things that really helped me and i have to say the most
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are well thought out because you won't have the chance to moderate it later on.
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really look forward to doing them and i'm really excited about learning about what our users think how they use a certain product so this feeling of feeling comfortable that comes with time you have to allow time to do that but there are some things that you can already do
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And another thing that is related to that is that in a survey, you don't have the chance to ask for explanations. So, if someone gives an ambiguous answer, it's really hard to understand
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oftentimes you also want them to give you feedback about a product or a feature that you're working on and they have to feel comfortable to share maybe criticism also with you so what you want to do is you want to create a safe environment and you do that by always
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what they mean because you don't have that personal contact like you would in user interviews.
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i won't be offended if you have any criticism feel free to share any negative feedback and make sure to restate that during the interview so that they feel confident that they can share things with you another thing that you want to do and this is very important is if you want to record your interview
Speaker A
Now, before you start with a user interview, it's really important to understand the goal of your research. So, never just jump into an interview and think of some questions that you
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the recording so that i can watch it back later on and i can now focus on just our interview so that i'm not distracted i don't have to take notes i can just focus on the conversation and it's also really good to tell your users what you will do with these recordings so
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want to get answered. It takes a bit of preparation work, and it all starts with a research goal. The research goal is the purpose of your research. It answers the question: why are we doing this?
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so why is this person here today why are you there what are you trying to find out through your interview and also give the person the space to ask any questions if the goal isn't clear yet now i already said this before but i'm gonna say it again because it is a sneaky thing that happens
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So, it explains the reasons why you're conducting the research.
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a guide but also allow the conversation to progress naturally and um one thing that i really struggle with in the beginning was that i would have written my key questions and i would be really anxious to think oh did i maybe forget one question or did i already ask this or not
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And these research goals are important because it helps you reflect on the purpose. It also helps you to define the scope. It helps you to know what you want to measure and how these insights can
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to happen and then this also links to avoiding assumptions is to react neutral so what we tend to do as humans in order to empathize with the person in front of us is to say oh yeah i have the same thing or oh i agree that's horrible or oh no i don't agree with that at all
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be turned into actions. It also helps you to know the why and the what before deciding on the how.
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the same thing just like you oh i agree with that instead when someone says something you can say oh okay what makes you think like that why was that what was your experience so try to avoid this what
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So, what might happen is that you think about a research goal, you define the scope, you know what you want to find out, what the purpose is, and then you come to the conclusion that user interviews
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and the most important thing was that i really pressured myself to finish this interview fast i would just race through the questions and that can also be a bit of nervousness that you you're so eager to do everything right that you're starting to speed up your
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might not be the right method for this purpose, and that is why it is so important to start from the goal and not start from the method. Always let the goal lead the method that you're going to use.
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in conversation when you're having a conversation with your friend you're also not trying to speed through the conversation and end the conversation fast you want to really understand what your friend is saying you want to dig deeper and you want to keep that conversation going
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And another important hint here is that a research goal is never formulated as a question, so it's formulated as a sentence. For example, in the case that we're going to use today, we're going to
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have to ask that or well this person already kind of answered my question so i'm just going to skip this question and the problem with that is that when later on you want to derive insights from your user interview you might think oh why didn't we not ask this question or why did we skip this
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talk about a dating app. So, the purpose of a user interview that we conduct in this context might be:
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have skipped something so allow yourself this time that is totally fine allow it yourself to repeat a question if you didn't really catch the answer that's totally fine and then something that i already said before but i cannot repeat it
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We are doing this research because we want to find out how people meet new people or potential love matches via dating apps.
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your interview guide is like the um the place to to hold you above water but as time progresses try to let go of that script and try to follow it more as a conversation now i shared a lot of information let's just recap before we go into our live interview so what i
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Instead of a question that could be: How do people use dating apps? That's not a research goal; that is a research question.
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the key questions and the key questions should be around 5 to ten questions that are the most important things that you want to ask your user when you're interviewing this person and while you're writing an interview guide what you want to try is to write outlines make sure
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So, in combination with the research goal, you also want to define research questions. These are the questions that explain what are you trying to find out, so what do you intend to learn, and these
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you want to make sure that it feels like a natural conversation you use your interview guide as a guide not as a script and you try to really ask why many times and react neutral so we're going to
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questions are not the ones that you would ask your users, but it's more the ones that you would ask yourself. So, in combination with the research goal, what is it that we intend to learn? What is it that
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meet new people and especially potential love interests so that is one goal another goal is that we want to understand how people and tech use apps and social networks to meet new people and then we want to uncover the biggest pain points in the experience of using dating
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we want to find out? And these research questions, they help with writing an interview guide later on, and they also help with finding the right people and, again, the right methods. So, again,
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dating apps what are the biggest benefits and how can our law foundry dating app support our users lifestyle and goals so based on these research goals and questions i formulated four key questions and the key questions are what role do dating apps play in your life how do you
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instead of thinking we're going to do a user interview and already jumping into the questions that you want to ask your users, you're first going to take a step back and think.
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role do dating apps play and how can we better support them to find a potential law of interest now i cannot do this interview by myself so we will have a special guest and that is callum callum was very courageous today to be our guinea pig and as a side note is that for
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this interview because we only have limited time i'll be focusing more on the technical part of the interview so i will not be focusing as much on the motivations because um i'm sure that callum has some interesting dating stories but i'm also sure that he won't want to share that with everyone so
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for the sake of this interview we'll be focusing more on the usage and the ux of the dating apps so let me go back here Calum if you're ready then i can do the interview with you yeah sure hey everyone my name is Calum i'm the video team lead here at career foundry and
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yeah looking looking forward to this i think maybe drew this short straw of tonight but i'm looking forward to it all right so um i will start the interview as i would started any other user interview so from now on um imagine that i'm just doing a user interview with Calum
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so Calum thank you so much for joining this user interview today my name is maureen i am a product designer and i'm working for law foundry and the goal of our conversation today is to find out how our users use dating apps and how law foundry can support them with that
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so i will ask you a few generic questions first and afterwards i'll ask you a bit more specific questions but before we jump into this interview i would like to ask you if it's okay for you if i
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record the interview that is for private purposes only for me to watch back and so that we can now focus on the conversation no one else will see the recordings um so if that's fine for you yeah and now as notes to the audience i would now hit record and Calum if you don't have
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any questions for me then i would suggest we just jump right in yeah absolutely and by the way i just want to say i love the name it's great well foundry really catchy um so as a note to the audience what i would normally start to use an interview with
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are a few generic questions to make my user feel at ease to create a safe space and to kind of um understand the bigger context in which they are so um Calum i would like to ask you throughout this interview to be as honest and open as possible with me and you won't offend anything
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on me if you have any criticism about law foundry and of course if you don't feel comfortable answering question then just let me know and we'll skip the question yeah sure um what i first would like to ask you is how do you in general
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meet new people i know that you moved to Berlin so how do you meet new people here yeah that's a good question i think it's probably changed a lot in the last year and a half for obvious reasons
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um this may be better to support that because traditionally before the the world events of the last year and a half um i would meet most new people whether maybe socially or romantically i guess at things like events and meetups whether it was through through
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work or through kind of after work activities so i would do a lot of me ups and go thought of events um and yeah also kind of places i would frequent maybe it was like bars or cafes you know you'd
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strike up conversations with people and i think that's changed a lot obviously in the last year and a half so now i think things have shifted to kind of the digital space and particularly like events and meetups but uh also the increased use in like dating apps and things like that
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which we're covering today so it's kind of spoiled but yeah more more in the digital space nowadays and um what would you say because you mentioned that during the pandemic it changed for you how you meet new people so what would you say were the challenges that you faced in meeting new people
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before the pandemic and now during the pandemic well i'm also based in Berlin and as you know like Berlin's a pretty big city so i think some of the challenges are just things like geography um getting from one side of the city to me meet someone again whether socially or romantically uh
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yeah the geography can play a big part in that if they're based in a different district or on the other side of the city um and obviously things like the walk down and stuff obviously like this space that you could actually meet and interact with has changed fundamentally in the
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last year and a half so yeah i think those would be some of the challenges the present situation so you said in the um before the pandemic what challenges you is just the geography that is the distance that makes it harder to meet people and now of course
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makes it even more hard because you can't meet people personally yeah that makes me sound a little bit lazy but uh yeah i think the geography was a big part so Calum um i would like to ask a few more questions um connected to dating so could you
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tell me how you approach dating in general what do you think about it how do you feel about that that's a tough one um i would say it was i was quite sporadic uh with dating i would say it's
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kind of a passive acting activity past time um yeah i wouldn't say i was a hugely active dater these days but um i found it can be quite time consuming and like you mentioned earlier when you were talking to the audience you know an introvert i i would say i'm quite extroverted
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like i get energy from being around other people but i think particularly with dating that can draw quite a lot of energy from you particularly the first first date scenario you know like you put on a certain type of uh i guess like a face when you meet someone for the first time
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um based on like first impressions and things so yeah i think that would be kind of i don't know if that answers your question sorry my perspective yeah i'm quite passive with it and what what makes you passive with it why is that uh i think i'm just quite sporadic with it and
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it's not like i have scheduled times we're like oh hey i've not been on a date in a while i need to fix that it's uh yeah it just kind of comes and goes you know um but yeah i i don't know i don't i don't really have much more to expand unfortunately i'm just
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kind of passive background i'm a background data theater that's like yeah so as a note to the audience now is that and in cases like this when a user says oh i don't know uh that's just how it is
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this would be a good point to ask why even more because oftentimes people do have a motivation but they just don't have it at hand so what i would ask on this part we're not going to go too deep in this right now but what questions you could ask right now is what are the what are the
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beliefs or um you say that you get a bit lazy and passive with it what makes you think it's passive and these kind of questions help you understand the mindset that our users is in so you will have
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um situations during your user interviews where people say oh that's just the way it is or oh i i don't know that's just what i do and those are challenging points because you tend to think okay well then that's just how this person is but these are the points where you can really dig deeper and
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you kind of have to guide the person that's what i said before you need to steer them and let them do the talking by asking some probing questions so that this would be a good point to ask that
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um and before i ask these dating questions um as again no to the audience is because i want to know the beliefs around dating and this might sound a bit fluffy or fuzzy but the reason why i want
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to understand this is because the mindset that people come to use your product with really say a lot about how they will experience it there is a big difference between someone that says oh i love using dating apps they give me lots of energy i use them all the time i've met
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so many cool people and someone that says oh i'm using dating apps when i'm bored or i feel a bit lonely and i'm on the toilet so i need five minutes of entertainment those are two different mindsets so that's what you also want to find out
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okay so now um after we have covered this bigger context we want to dig dig a little bit deeper and so for this particular interview i will focus more on the UX of dating apps so um Calum maybe you could tell me what role do dating apps play in your life um it's
Speaker A
an interesting question uh i think it's definitely come a long way from like for online data i think it's definitely come a long way from the days of like Eharmony and match.com not that i ever use these kind of browsing dating apps um i have friends that have but definitely i think the apps
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sort of fit the time that we're in just now so for a lot of people it's kind of a convenient time saver you know you can get the sapphire on your phone and potentially strike up conversations with inter interesting people while you wait for the bus or you're
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going walking to work you know so i think it's kind of a convenient time saver so i would say yeah i think i think we just represent the terms that we live in currently so um you mentioned this before you mention it again that you connect saving time and convenience with um
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dating apps so is that also some is that does that tell something about how you feel about dating apps is this convenience important to you i think so yeah and just to touch on the the thing you mentioned to the audience previously about digging a little deeper like i think when i
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mentioned that it wasn't a huge part of my uh i don't know a huge like priority for me i think it is a time thing like i think i don't know i think given the geography of Berlin and
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you know distances that you have to travel it can be quite exhausting and you know spending an hour on a train or a bus to get somewhere to then meet someone or and then come back and it's yeah so i think maybe it's about time then and saving time and energy in that respect
Speaker A
so as a note to the audience what Calum is saying here is very interesting because remember um law foundry is a app for people working in tech and what Calum says here is oh um dating apps they're convenient because they're time saving so this might already give us a hint of what our
Speaker A
users that are people working in tech might find important they might not have the time to spend uh on going out meeting people or clubbing so the saving time component might be very important for them and if this interview would be taking longer i would ask Calum more questions about
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that because that is something that as a designer i want to know more about how can we help you save time how can law foundry app help you save time so um Calum you already told me that there are particular moments that you use the dating apps is when you're waiting for the bus
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it's because you want to save time and um when we talked in private you already mentioned to me that you used hinge so i want to learn more about your experience with hinge could you tell me a bit
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more about how your experience using the app was yeah i think it was recommended to me by a friend uh last year and it was kind of the new kid on the block in terms of dating apps at the time
Speaker A
um or always in Germany in Berlin um and unlike previous apps that i'd used like bumble bumble and tinder it just felt a bit more personable like it felt like there was a bigger emphasis on building a connection with someone um and also it wasn't one of these kind of uh card swiping left or right
Speaker A
style apps it was a bit more you were kind of presented a profile of someone one at a time you know and you kind of engage with that profile but more deeply um so it felt a bit more meaningful in
Speaker A
a way so that's interesting you said um you want to save time but now you mention what you do like about using hinge is that it gives you a more personalized experience and it's not just swiping left or right as in tinder but you interact or you're more encouraged to interact more deeply
Speaker A
with profiles so would you say that that is important to you when you use a dating app yeah i think it's uh yeah it's about forging a more meaningful connection right you know if you're if you're time strapped you don't want to necessarily go and go on lots of dates where
Speaker A
there's no connection with the person and there's a bad fit so i think definitely being able to have a stronger connection or a more meaningful interaction before you actually meet perhaps is again maybe a bit of a time saver ultimately um and as a note to the audience what i often times
Speaker A
try to do in user interview is to restate what my interviewee is telling me and i do this for two reasons one to check if i understand correctly what my interviewee said and second to let my interviewee know that i'm actively listening to this person
Speaker A
and in this case um if again if we would have more time this would be a really interesting component to dig deeper in because what callum is basically telling me is i want to have quality in limited time i don't have much time so i i want to have few good matches instead of going
Speaker A
through hundreds of matches that are just so so so um Calum what are the things that you liked about using the hinge app you already told me some other other things that you liked about using that app uh yeah a number of things actually it always felt less gamified i know apps like tinder and bumble
Speaker A
you have different kind of upsells and you know super likes and boosts and all this kind of thing i think hinge felt a bit more serious a bit more adult um so yeah it felt less gamified uh and as i mentioned it felt like it had a more human element to it you know so i i know these
Speaker A
all these apps are designed to make money but it definitely felt like they were more like one of their taglines is you know we hope you delete this app and find someone that's or it's phrased differently but i think that's the main selling point if you sell it as like the last
Speaker A
app you ever need kind of thing you know so it definitely feels like they're on a mission to make connections whereas i feel like tinder is about you know things like user retention and engagement but yeah you said um gamified could you explain this a bit more why does it feel gamified to you
Speaker A
uh sorry so hinge hinge doesn't feel gamified oh okay i was just comparing it with the other ones sorry um so i think hinge just feels a little bit more serious whereas when you use apps like bumble and tinder there's always kind of like cartoonish upsells and almost like they do like
Speaker A
power-ups in Mario Kart or something you know so it just feels a bit more serious i think so um what i take from what you're saying is you me it makes you hinge feels more serious to you because you don't have these power ups or super boosts yeah it just feels a bit more
Speaker A
um focused on the actual task at hand which is like building connections between people and allowing people to meet up and and date whereas i think the other ones just feel more about making money and it's kind of it looks very much a good skewer towards that okay so what i take from that
Speaker A
is that also you want to feel like this app um helps you make a connection rather than takes your money from you this is it this is it you mentioned earlier it's all but quality definitely okay and what are the things that you did not like that much about using the hinge app
Speaker A
uh i think like most of the data there's definitely limitations on use um i think even hinge has these kind of like paywall structures um so you have a free version and then there's a version you can pay for and then another version that gives you more features um
Speaker A
and i think i kind of i dislike that and i know it's natural for companies to have these different features to make money but um i think with hinge it always it kind of strips away what i just mentioned where it feels quite serious that does kind of chip away at that experience
Speaker A
if how could you how would you say could the experience using hinge be improved um i think maybe just a bit more transparency about how many how many profiles you can engage with like maybe a counter on the side or something it always feels like you reach a paywall suddenly
Speaker A
or like some kind of blocker for the for the free accounts um so maybe a bit more transparency about things like that i think would help okay um i will i will only ask you um as a note to be
Speaker A
honest i will only ask Calum one last question but i just want to reiterate to what we just said so what might be really helpful when you're doing an interview is to ask for very specific things so if i would ask Calum um what is your experience with dating apps then that doesn't really give
Speaker A
him a time frame or a specific moment to remember and this is hard for people when you ask them very generic questions in an interview they don't know which memory to pick so what i would suggest is that when you have an interview ask for specific specific things what do you think of the hinge app
Speaker A
can you tell me the last time you use the dating app can you tell me how many times did you use a dating app in the past month that makes it more concrete for our users now um normally i would also ask more about competitors how they compare with each other
Speaker A
what my users think about the competitors what they like about it what they don't like about it and then what i always like to do to end the interview is to ask what i call the magic wand question and i will ask that calum now so Calum we talked a bit about dating apps
Speaker A
now um to close our interview imagine that you would have a magic wand and you could wish whatever to improve your experience with dating apps what would you wish for that's a really tough question actually and maybe i'll give you an answer that's
Speaker A
not one that's uniquely personal to me but um more for my my friends are for their um women that are using the apps but i definitely think improved uh safety features so i think i read somewhere that it was either maybe tinder or bumble were rolling at a future
Speaker A
which meant that um women couldn't receive unassociated messages if it was flagged as being a bit creepy or weird um and i thought that was a really cool feature and i know currently in the current global situation um social media platforms like facebook and instagram and youtube
Speaker A
can flag up content that has for example um keywords like pandemic or vaccine and things you can flag up with warning signs so i definitely think if those apps can do that then they can be maybe a bit more proactive with their safety features for for particularly women
Speaker A
users in my experience um yeah just from based on stories i've heard from friends and things so that would be maybe one of the features i would try and improve so that people can use these apps in sort of safer manner and feel less and be intimidated by them and that's not
Speaker A
going to be uniquely a personal experience for myself but i'm not sure hopefully that helps the reason why and this is again to my audience the reason why i like to ask this question by the end of the conversation is because it gives the users a chance to share any ideas for improvements
Speaker A
with me or it gives them the space to share anything that we didn't touch upon so what Calum mentioned here is safety features now if i would actually be working for law foundry then that would be a very important hint for us something that we should focus our apps on but for now i'm
Speaker A
going to close off the interview so i will say Calum thank you so much for your time today and if you have any questions let us know i really enjoyed the interview and you gave me a lot of
Speaker A
insight so thank you for that that's great and uh yeah thanks to you maureen and thanks to the audience for tuning in i'll i'll disappear now but yeah thanks a lot everyone thank you Calum all right so um that was a very short user interview of course in 15 20 minutes we cannot
Speaker A
cover everything but hopefully this gave you some insight and how i go about doing user interviews and i see that we're a little bit over time but i hope that we still have a bit more time for questions Jakub let me know if there are any questions and then we can answer those
Speaker A
so there are oh muted uh yes there are quite a few questions um so first of all um quite a few compliments about your listening skills uh so maybe we could start with that um how how can you recommend ways to practice your listening skills i can
Speaker A
recommend a book for that and the book is called non-violent communication by Marshall Rosenberg and the good thing with this book is that it teaches you how to actively listen to the other and this book is not made for UX designers but it is very helpful because it helps UX designers
Speaker A
to identify fears that people might have and this non-violent communication helps you to communicate in conflict situations but also it really helps me user interviews to restate what another person is saying to understand if i got the mesh message right because oftentimes we assume
Speaker A
we know what another person is saying but we understand them wrong so always restate what another person said in your own words and then say is this what you were trying to say fantastic thank you so let's get to the questions um and if you have any questions just post them in
Speaker A
the q a chat and of course use that upfold button um so we can ask your favorite ones um here's one about eye tracking how can we conduct eye tracking user testing are there any particular tool kits or
Speaker A
applications to do that i know that there are agencies that are specialized in eye tracking i personally never use this so i cannot recommend a tool for you because i don't have experience with it but i learned that a lot of specialized user research agencies oftentimes
Speaker A
use this so if you have questions about that i would suggest that you reach out to one of these agencies in your area and maybe they can give you some tips on that on what they use or maybe you can already see that on the website how they do that thank you and why five people would
Speaker A
be considered the correct amount of people to interview this is a controversial thing because the standard is what what we use in ux design is that we oftentimes say five people are enough because with five people you cover 80 percent or 75 of all the insights and the more people
Speaker A
that you interview the more you will see a pattern but you will get less new insights so oftentimes five people is enough however in i i start to notice that in more and more interviews that i do we actually tend to interview more people and the reason for that is that the landscape that
Speaker A
our users live in right now is way more complex than it was when this research by anon group was conducted so anand group did a research and they said okay five people is enough to cover most insights however this research is already from a different time so it's gotten
Speaker A
way more complex so for example recently i did a user interview with 10 people now i would say that's a lot like i would say that the last two people we could have also skipped that but if you have the chance to interview seven people for example that is already a good compromise
Speaker A
thank you um how can i know or notice if i'm asking the right questions when conducting a user interview you can you can read the um attitude of the person so if you can try to read the body language if
Speaker A
someone like not goes like this or is like this you can already tell okay there is something there maybe i might need to dig a little bit deeper or maybe i just gotten too personal and what i would also always say is that when you've written your interview guide
Speaker A
get it checked by other colleagues because what you might think are good key questions maybe you can talk with a colleague that also knows the business objectives and gives you a new perspective so always check with your colleagues when it's about your interview guide
Speaker A
and then during the interview try to read the body language of someone to understand should i ask more about this or is this somewhat something that a person doesn't want to talk about and is there a golden rule for how many questions we should be asking during user interviews
Speaker A
um so like i said i would go for five to ten key questions and then like i said before try to keep the conversation natural so if you feel like there is one thing that is particularly interesting so in the example with Calum i would ask him more about this
Speaker A
contradiction between wanting to have quality matches but also wanting to save time that would be a point where i would be asking more follow-up questions so use as many follow-up questions as you need but try to limit the key questions to five to ten questions
Speaker A
and i uh just love this question about how do you find people to interview by yourself or do you write on first party for recruiting and maybe here because you're one of our graduates so maybe you could start with actually how you interviewed people and recruited them during your bootcamp
Speaker A
exactly and then how you recruit people at your current position exactly so when i was studying in uh at career foundry of course i don't have any money to use any recruitment services so what i would do is after i written down my research goals and questions i would try to find
Speaker A
the natural habitat of my people so for example i did a project on expats and so i would reach out to expat groups in berlin and you had internations there are expat groups on reddit on facebook and i would try to find people there so i would just write an um forum post on intonation saying
Speaker A
hey i'm wanting to conduct user interviews for expats is there someone living in berlin that would be interested and then i would give my requirements must be h x between x um speak german or whatever your requirements might be so try to find the natural habitat of your users and
Speaker A
then right now um if you work at a company you'll oftentimes find that they actually use recruitment services for that or right now at solando we even have a research coordinator so i will tell her what kind of users i'm looking for and then she will get in touch with these people so you have to
Speaker A
lock that when you work at a company the screening part is actually taken out of your hands in many cases not always but in many cases as far as i've experienced i never had to do the screening myself
Speaker A
thank you uh maybe we have to point out a few questions um how to bring back the focus when an interview is too often goes on and on yeah that's a really good one and that really tends to happen because when a interviewee gets very passionate or worked up they're just
Speaker A
going to derail the conversation and there again like i said you're there to steer so you can it's totally fine to say uh thank you i would like to bring the focus back to and then you repeat the question that you were meant to ask so don't be shy to say that say okay thanks um
Speaker A
with the eye on the time i would like to bring our focus back to and then you'll repeat your question do you have any favorite tools for interviews and transcripts so at solando we just use google meat you don't need to use any fancy programs
Speaker A
and for doing user interviews remote we just use google meet we write our notes in google sheets that's where our note taker also writes everything down and in my previous jobs we used um teams or zoom so you don't need any fancy tools any kind of a meeting tool that you already
Speaker A
am familiar with that's totally fine to use and maybe the last question and i just love this one um does user's personality matter in the interview if we interview same type of people for example introverts how can we know um the view of extroverts i think what is very important here is
Speaker A
to really have the screening requirements of your users correct so oftentimes when we're doing user interviews i'm mostly interested in a certain type of user i'm not too concerned if this person is an introvert or an extrovert sometimes it does matter the personality does matter in
Speaker A
the interview because if we're talking to someone that is extremely shy or private or reserved it's very hard to get to this person because they simply will not answer your question or they will only say yes and no and in that case what i said before and this takes a bit of courage but
Speaker A
ask why don't give up try to dig deeper and try to create a safe environment so throughout your user interviews you you will talk with many different people some you just have to give the microphone they will talk for 60 minutes trades you don't almost don't have to ask a question and other
Speaker A
people you really have to pull out the answers but that is why it is important that you have this interview guide and that you feel confident to ask more follow-up questions fantastic thank you so much Maureen thank you Calum if you're still there in the
Speaker A
background and thank you all for attending and learning with us today uh so as i mentioned at the beginning if you have any questions about our UX or ui programs just reach out to one of our program advisors and they'll be very very happy to help you and with that i wish
Speaker A
you a very good morning good evening wherever you faced and see you next time bye thank you all bye
Topics:UX designuser interviewsqualitative researchuser researchdesign thinkingresearch goalsresearch questionsusability testingCareerFoundryproduct design
