User Interviews
What is a Type I Error?
User interviews are a qualitative research method employed in user experience and product design to gather insights directly from users. Through one-on-one conversations, researchers explore user behaviors, motivations, and pain points to improve the product. Unlike usability testing, which focuses on how users interact with a product, user interviews uncover deeper insights into their needs and decision-making processes.
The Basic Idea
Imagine you own a coffee shop. You know that people enjoy the convenience of ordering ahead on their phones, so you decide to launch a smartphone app. You engage developers to design a prototype app and leverage user testing to see how easily consumers can navigate the app to order a coffee. The first round of user testing reveals that it’s taking people a while to check out from the time they open the app. You decrease the number of steps it takes, and in the second round of user testing, the data shows that users are completing the checkout process faster. However, surveys that were administered to participants afterward still reveal that users are dissatisfied with the checkout process. To dig a little deeper, you conduct user interviews with a few of the participants that indicated frustrations.
While interviewing participants, you discover something you hadn’t considered or even thought to track during the user tests. A couple of participants mentioned that after they went through the checkout process, it was difficult to tell if the order had gone through. They suggested a pop-up that said “Order Complete” and included the time until their order was ready. You had assumed that speed was the main issue with the checkout process, but actually, it was clarity.
While quantitative methods of user testing reveal the “what”—such as identifying pain points or features that perform well—qualitative methods like user interviews reveal the “why.” That’s why it’s best practice to have a mixed-method approach to user testing. Quantitative research may reveal which areas require focus, while qualitative research gives you deeper insight into why someone likes a feature or why certain aspects of the product are challenging. User interviews allow companies to truly understand their customers and provide in-depth insights into how to improve the product and increase user satisfaction.
Stories are where the richest insights lie, and your objective is to get to this point in every interview.
— Steve Portigal, an experienced user researcher, consultant, and author of Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights1
About the Author
Emilie Rose Jones
Emilie currently works in Marketing & Communications for a non-profit organization based in Toronto, Ontario. She completed her Masters of English Literature at UBC in 2021, where she focused on Indigenous and Canadian Literature. Emilie has a passion for writing and behavioural psychology and is always looking for opportunities to make knowledge more accessible.
