What interview questions help you get the most useful feedback?

I use funnel technique when I take user interview. Start with broad open ended questions, then narrow down open ended follow up questions, then closed follow up questions. To me a good question is: "How do you feel about it"?

In my experience as a UXR Intern at PeepalDesign, the most impactful interview questions dive into users' journeys, behaviors, and thoughts. Questions that encourage sharing experiences, like "Can you talk about your interaction with our product?" or "What roadblocks did you face while using our platform?" unveil crucial insights. Also, asking about favorite features or frustrating experiences provides valuable feedback for better usability. The key is framing questions that invite honest expressions, capturing real experiences to steer our design decisions.

Avoid leading question always. For example: Leading question: "Hey! I just observed that you were facing trouble finding the menu items. Was it just because of menu has poor contrast color?" Open ended question: "Hey! I just observed that you were facing trouble finding the menu items. Can you please tell me what was running in your mind? What was your thought process that time?

Follow-up questions are an important part of User Interviews. In fact, they are key to building a deeper understanding of users' attitudes and needs. My recommendation is to take notes during the interview - not to document what is being said, but to capture topics you want to follow up on. For example: - A specific word the participant used where you want to ask about what they meant by this. - An opinion they expressed where you want to understand the reasons behind it. - A topic they mentioned briefly and that you would like to learn more about. My approach is always to let the interview flow and then follow up when the participant pauses. This ensures that you don't interrupt their thoughts but are still able to dive deeper.

In my experience, it is so important to dig deeper and use the "5 Why's" such as: "Can you tell me more about that, I'd like to understand - why that is important?" and "ok, but why is that necessary?"

Recently, my team have been enhancing existing sites for internal clients. In usability tests, on homepage arrival we are asking: "What do you think this site is for?", "Who do you think it's for?", "What do you think you can do here?" This is to check the purpose of the site, intended audience and actions available to the user are all crystal clear. Sounds obvious but it's important to check the basics.

Encourage participants to articulate their own thoughts and reasoning, researchers can gain deeper insights into issues and the reasons behind them. Use prompts like "What do you think?" or "Why do you think that is?" when participants raise questions about usability.

I like using the analogy of a treasure map. Think of questions as milestones to reaching the treasure. Ladder up broader to specific questions, depending on the responses. Test and seek answers for your riskiest and most important assumptions. Seek clues through the responses to uncover hidden user insights.