Understanding Users Through Interviews

What is the outcome when we design something?

The answer would be the change we want to see in people’s lives when we deliver the design.

So, how do we bring change to people’s lives? We bring change by improving their existing condition.

So, how do we go about improving the existing condition? By studying their existing condition, in other words, their current experience.

By studying the current experience of the user, we understand the problems they are facing and then we produce solutions to those problems to achieve our goal—the outcome. But only when we pick the right solution to the right problem we can get to the outcome.

So, how do we go about picking the right problem and thereby picking the right solution? The answer lies in how we get better at understanding the current experience and thereby finding the right problems to solve.

Understanding the Current Experience of the User through User Interviews

There are several methodologies to study the users. Interviewing is the approach to take a deep dive into users' lives. This is done by deeply studying people in their context; exploring not only their behaviours but also the meaning behind those behaviours.

Often the asserted purpose of interviewing users is to realize their pain points/needs. Steve Portigal calls this some kind of scooping activity where researchers can get tons of fresh needs/pain points to incorporate into the products.

He argues that by doing this a lot of important information remains undiscovered. The stated “pain points” might not be as painful to the user as described. Thus it becomes significant to dig deep enough to get insights—to not just explore the behaviours but to find meaning behind them.

Another important thing to consider while interviewing users is the discovery of new frameworks. Beyond simply gathering data for the stated goal, one must strive to reframe the problem.

This can create a significant shift in perspective of the initial problem which can produce new possibilities for design and innovation. The reframes are also helpful in understanding where the current solutions are likely to fail or succeed.

Empathy for the users significantly increases when one takes a deep dive into their lives.

So one can better advocate the needs of the users, hence, find the right problems and apt solutions to them. The path to the outcome becomes easy to find. Thus improving the experience and bringing the change we want to see in their lives.

Credits: The views/insights presented in the article are not mine. These are the learnings from lectures on design & strategy by the amazing Jared Spool and design books, sp. for?this article:?Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights by Steve Portigal