What are the best strategies to ensure consistent end user interviews across different projects?

1 Define your goals and scope

Before you start any interview project, you need to define your goals and scope clearly. What are you trying to learn from your end users? What are the key questions you want to answer? How will you use the insights to inform your design decisions? Having a clear purpose and direction will help you plan your interview sessions, select your participants, and structure your questions.

2 Create an interview guide

An interview guide is a document that outlines the topics, questions, and prompts you will use during your interview sessions. This document helps you stay focused, consistent, and organized throughout your project. It should include a brief introduction that explains the purpose and format of the interview, and requests consent and permission to record. Additionally, it should have a set of open-ended questions that cover the main topics you want to explore, such as user needs, pain points, motivations, behaviors, expectations, and feedback. Furthermore, it should include follow-up questions or probes to help you dig deeper into the user's responses. Finally, it should have a closing section that thanks the user for their time, asks if they have any questions or comments, and informs them about the next steps.

3 Recruit and screen your participants

To ensure consistent end user interviews across different projects, it's important to recruit and screen participants carefully. Your criteria and segments should be based on your goals and scope, and you should create a screener survey to ask questions related to these criteria and segments. Additionally, you can use online platforms, social media, or referrals to reach out to potential participants, then invite them to fill out the screener survey. After reviewing the responses, select the participants who match your criteria and segments, and contact them to schedule the interview sessions. This will help you find users who represent your target audience, have relevant experience or knowledge, and are willing and able to participate while avoiding those with conflicts of interest, personal biases, or ulterior motives.

4 Conduct and record your interviews

When conducting and recording your interviews, it is important to create a comfortable and engaging environment for your participants, and follow your interview guide closely. Choose a quiet and private location, either in person or online, and test your equipment and connection beforehand. Begin your interviews with a friendly and professional introduction, where you remind them about the purpose, format, and consent of the interview. Ask questions in a clear and neutral way, listening actively and empathetically to their responses. Utilize follow-up questions or probes to explore the user's thoughts and feelings, avoiding leading, suggestive, or closed questions that might influence their answers. Finally, end your interviews with a thank you and a summary of the main points, asking if they have any questions or comments.

5 Analyze and synthesize your data

After you conduct your interviews, you need to analyze and synthesize your data to identify patterns, themes, and insights. Then, you must document and communicate your findings to your stakeholders and team members. To do this, you should transcribe your interviews, either manually or with a tool, and review the transcripts for accuracy and completeness. You should also code the transcripts, assigning labels or categories to different segments of your data based on their meaning or relevance. Group the codes into themes, looking for connections, similarities, and differences among the data. Generate insights from the themes and interpret what they mean for your goals and scope. Lastly, create deliverables from your insights - such as personas, journey maps, affinity diagrams, or reports - and present them to your stakeholders and team members.

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?