What do you do if your user interviews in the UX design process are not yielding valuable insights?

If user interviews in the UX design process aren't yielding valuable insights, it's essential to revisit the basics and deeply consider the design objectives and potential user reactions. Prototyping or creating an MVP can be highly beneficial, as it enables users to interact with the application directly, offering invaluable feedback. Additionally, conducting interviews in person, in natural settings while users engage with the application, can provide deeper insights, particularly by analyzing how their emotions change during usage.

Start by revisiting the objectives you outlined before conducting the interviews and ensure they align with the project's scope and objectives. Assess whether your interview questions are open-ended and designed to elicit meaningful responses that address your research goals. Consider if you're targeting the right audience segments and if there are any biases or assumptions affecting the interview process. Additionally, evaluate the interview techniques and methods used to gather information, ensuring they facilitate open and honest conversations with participants. By revisiting and refining your research goals, you can realign your approach to user interviews

If user interviews in UX design aren't providing valuable insights, try refining interview techniques, targeting the right audience, asking better questions, and diversifying research methods. Improve participant engagement, analyze existing data, and iterate on the process. Seek input from peers or experts and manage expectations.

Reviewing your research goals is essential before conducting user interviews. This involves clarifying your research questions, assumptions, and hypotheses, as well as determining how you will measure success. By aligning your interview questions with your objectives, you can avoid asking irrelevant or leading questions and ensure that you recruit the right participants. This process helps define your target users and guides your research effectively.

Each business decision should of course, be preceded by thorough market research. Assuming that's being done, picture of target demographic, specificities of business niche you're trying to fill and final goals, should be pretty clear. Interviews are the ones that can test the conclusions that came out of that initial research. Now, if they are not yielding the results it might be that research results are not validated properly and questions should be re-aligned to the goals specified in the initial phase. In example, if certain action is most desired, appeal of UED that should lead to that action should be subject of an interview. Hence both the action definition and the question should be clearly defined and in line with each other.

Begin by examining the clarity and depth of your questions, ensuring they are open-ended and tailored to extract meaningful responses. Consider if you're asking the right questions to uncover the user's needs, pain points, and preferences. Review the structure and flow of your interview script to ensure a natural and engaging conversation that encourages participants to share their experiences openly. Seek feedback from colleagues or mentors on your interview questions to gain insights into areas for improvement. By refining your interview questions, you can enhance the quality of insights gathered and better inform your UX design decisions.

Refine your interview questions to be open-ended, specific, and focused on the user's experience. Avoid yes/no questions, multiple questions in one, or those that imply a desired answer. Instead, ask questions that prompt stories, examples, feelings, motivations, and preferences from users. For instance, instead of asking "Do you like this feature?", inquire about "How do you use this feature?" or "What problem does this feature solve for you?"

Facing an UI, majority of users reacts spontaneously so spontaneous, first impression answers to interview questions have a pretty big impact at least for me. I would surely refine the question in such a manner that they are short and do not require deep analysis by the user. Definitely would not discard yes/no questions at all. Rare are the users that will spend 10 mins in analyzing the UI, hence I find more value in the instinctive, first impression answers and will refine my question in the way that can trigger those immediate, instinctive answers.

Expanding the pool of participants can provide a more diverse range of perspectives and experiences, potentially uncovering insights that may have been overlooked with a smaller sample. Ensure that your sample represents your target audience adequately, considering factors like demographics, behavior, and preferences. By broadening the scope of your research, you can capture a more comprehensive understanding of user needs and preferences, ultimately enhancing the effectiveness of your UX design decisions.

To improve research insights, aim to interview more users. A larger sample size enhances reliability and diversity in findings. Typically, interview at least five users per group or persona, adjusting as needed based on topic complexity. Increasing sample size reduces the risk of overlooking key insights or basing conclusions on outliers.

"Revisit the research plan." Perhaps you need to add or adjust some techniques. For example, some questions could be answered in a survey rather than an interview, and vice versa, or through data analysis.