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How to get the best out of user interviews?

Hey there πŸ‘‹

I am starting to give access to the early users of the β˜’ waiting list. I added a Calendly link, so they can book a call with to have a demo and gather feedback about it πŸ˜„

What are the main questions that I should ask them?

Should I let them go around and see their behaviour without saying nothing?

Should I give some tips?

Do you use other tool apart from Calendly?

Any tip is more than welcomed πŸ„β€β™‚οΈ


Maybe firstly could be to try to define your objectives for the interviews, as time with them is pretty short. To test the UI for usability issues? Or to understand their broader needs/painpoints to find opportunities for features? Because the questions and activities are different

Hey @jasonleow, thanks for that one. I think the main objective for now would be the second one, "to understand their broader needs/painpoints to find opportunities for features".

For now we ask something like "How would you achieve X" and see how they use the platform and work on top of that.

However, there are probably better questions to ask and flows πŸ€”

Could you suggest me some? πŸ˜„

I see. So more generative research than evaluative research. That's great! I think it's good to do more generative research at the beginning especially, when still looking for product-market fit. Some questions could be:

  • how do you do X now? What are your current workflows and work-around, what current apps do you use (not your app)?
  • how much time do you usually spend on these workflows?
  • where are the bottlenecks and painpoints based on your experience?
  • where are the points where it's easy and fast?
  • were there situations in the past when a painpoint for the workflow got so frustrating you decided to pay for a solution? Tell me more...
  • how much did you pay for the tools/apps?
  • how did you go about comparing between competing apps? (to find out their mental models rer: pricing)
  • in a perfect world, what would an ideal app for this workflow do?

Remember to ask for their direct experiences, not opinions.

Thanks @jasonleow , these questions are gold!

We will make sure of asking them on the interviews πŸ˜„

Strongly suggest reading The Mom Test. Great book on user interviews and how to get them working.

Thanks @swizec, just added to the list with high prio πŸ˜‰

I was also about to recommend that book.

Thanks for confirming how good it is @Jankeesvw πŸ˜„

IMO most important is to listen more than speaking. Ask open ended questions, and be careful in your follow-up questions: as founder, it's too easy to be biased and ask those follow-ups in a way that's gonna bias the interviewee's response towards what you wanna hear. Be super mindful of that. It's very likely that you'll get responses that you didn't want to hear, and that's fine. This will help you define your product and ideal customer more precisely.

Also, after doing way too many user interviews my current conclusion is that building > customer research. It's been said hundred times before, but: Probably the best thing to do is to build stuff that solves your own problem. Then, IMO you don't need to do too much user interviews. The feedback you'll get from real users, and ideally paid users, is probably 10x more valuable than any interview.

Also: those are just my opinions, might as well be all BS :shrug:

Thank you @Matthias for sharing your opinions on conducting user interviews and building a product.
I agree with you that listening is a crucial skill in conducting effective interviews and being mindful of potential biases is essential to obtaining valuable feedback.
Will keep the above in mind. thanks again