How do you design and conduct user interviews and surveys?

1 Define your goals

Before you start creating your interview or survey questions, you need to define your research goals. What are you trying to learn from your users? How will the results inform your design decisions or evaluation criteria? How will you measure the success of your research? Having clear and specific goals will help you focus your questions and avoid irrelevant or redundant information.

2 Choose your methods

Depending on your goals, you may choose to use interviews, surveys, or a combination of both. Interviews are more suitable for exploring complex, open-ended, or subjective topics, such as user motivations, emotions, or experiences. Surveys are more suitable for collecting quantitative, standardized, or comparative data, such as user demographics, preferences, or satisfaction. You also need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of different formats, such as face-to-face, phone, online, or paper-based.

3 Design your questions

The quality of your data is dependent on the quality of your questions, so it is important to design them carefully. Make sure to use clear, simple, and neutral language, while avoiding leading, biased, or ambiguous questions. Additionally, avoid double-barreled, compound, or hypothetical questions. For interviews, use open-ended questions and for surveys use closed-ended questions with appropriate scales, categories, or options. It is also important to order your questions logically and group them by topic. Before finalizing your questions, it is wise to test them with a small sample of users.

4 Conduct your interviews or surveys

Once you have your questions ready, you need to recruit and select your participants. Aim for a representative sample of your target users, based on your goals and criteria, and make sure to obtain informed consent from your participants. Explain the purpose, duration, and confidentiality of your research. During the interviews or surveys, follow a script or guide while being flexible and adaptable. Establish rapport and trust with your participants by using active listening and probing techniques. Record and document your data accurately and consistently, then thank your participants and offer incentives or rewards if applicable.

5 Analyze your data

The final stage of your research is to analyze your data and draw conclusions. Depending on the type and amount of data you have, there are various methods and tools you may use, such as coding and categorizing qualitative data, calculating descriptive statistics, performing inferential statistics or hypothesis testing, identifying patterns, themes, or insights, comparing and contrasting different groups or segments, and reporting and presenting your findings and recommendations.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?