Comprehensive guide to conducting user interviews
A user interview is a one-on-one conversation between a researcher and someone who uses (or might use) a product or service. The researcher asks structured, open-ended questions, records the answers, and analyzes them to understand the user’s experiences, thought processes, and needs.
User interviews tell you how people actually perceive your product. Depending on the questions you ask, they can also reveal usability problems and show you which features to improve.
This guide covers how, why, and when to conduct effective user interviews—and how to analyze the results.
What is a user interview?
User interviews are a user experience (UX) research method that brands use to understand how consumers interact with their products and services. You can conduct user interviews about almost anything.
For instance, you can run a user interview to:
- Determine whether your website achieves its goal
- Understand how customers perceive or use a particular product
- Discover how effective a particular service is
As the name suggests, user interviews involve a researcher interviewing someone who interacts with the product or service. Unlike focus groups, user interviews rely on one person’s responses at a time.
User interviews mainly happen one-on-one—in person, over video, or on the phone. The researcher asks questions, records the answers, and analyzes them later to understand the user’s experiences and perspective.
Quantitative and qualitative data
User interviews can be either quantitative or qualitative:
- Quantitative: collecting data over time from numerical sources and converting it into closed-ended questions or datasets, such as demographic metrics
- Qualitative: non-numerical data from face-to-face interactions and open questions, revealing experience data and the emotions behind decisions
Quantitative user interviews provide context on users’ past activities, while qualitative interviews tell you why users behave a certain way. Both help you understand your target audience’s views on your products or services.
Why should you conduct user interviews?
Companies rely on user interviews because they’re fast, contextual, and effective at uncovering the user’s experience—including everyday interactions with a product or service.
Through user interviews, researchers can learn:
- Habits and interactions of users
- The user experience
- Likes and dislikes of a product or service
- Beliefs influencing how and why people use a product or service
User interviews are critical for designing the best experience for your target audience. More reasons they matter:
- They reveal what’s meeting customer expectations and what needs a slight improvement or complete overhaul
- Their insights help align business decisions with user needs and expectations
- Development teams learn how users will react to a new product or feature
- They feed important design tools such as user personas and journey maps
By understanding users’ perspectives, designers can build usable, practical products that match customers’ expectations and needs.
When to conduct user interviews
You can conduct user interviews at various points in the lifecycle of a product or service. Two ideal times:
Before you start the design process
User interviews are especially useful at the start of the design process. Designers can learn what features users need, and those insights inform the journey map and workflows—leading to more functional products and services.
When you’re conducting usability tests
Another good time is during usability tests, which tell designers whether an app, website, or software is functional and meets the target audience’s needs.
Researchers typically combine self-reported data with observed behavior to understand customers’ perspectives on your products.
How to conduct user interviews
How you run user interviews determines whether you get valuable insights out of them. Fortunately, it isn’t complicated—follow these four steps.
1. Set a goal
Every effective research process starts with a goal. What are you trying to achieve with the interview? For example, your goal might be to find out:
- Why most of your existing customers refuse to upgrade to a paid plan
- Whether your target audience prefers a mobile app or a web application
- Which features users want in your next product update
A clearly defined goal keeps the interview on track and informs your interview questions, so you cover all the critical bases.
When defining the research goal, involve key product stakeholders for a more comprehensive objective.
2. Find and recruit participants
Once you’ve decided on your goal, find your participants. This step is relatively easy if you’ve already defined your target audience. If not, work out who your audience is first, then select a few representatives from that group.
You can also advertise on social media if you need a larger pool to choose from. Most researchers recruit five to ten interviewees.
To weed out incompatible interviewees, run a quick screening survey. You’ll get a clear picture of users’ demographics, needs, and backgrounds.
3. Writing user interview questions
Most researchers find this step challenging. Interview research questions must uncover the themes you want to learn about—without signaling that you’re looking for a specific answer. User interview research questions should be:
- Dialogue-provoking
- Neutral
- Free of the researcher’s preferred narrative
For example, don’t ask: “Why do you like the XYZ app?” That’s leading—it assumes the interviewee likes the app. Instead, ask: “Why do you use the XYZ app?” The open version gives you more room to learn how the user actually interacts with the app.
Leading questions won’t get you the unfiltered truth. They coax the interviewee into giving biased answers that could harm your business decisions.
Include plenty of open-ended questions, since they leave room for elaboration. You can throw in a few closed yes/no questions if necessary, but have follow-ups ready to understand the user’s full perspective.
The rule of thumb: keep questions clear, brief, and aligned with your research objectives.
It’s also worth writing a brief introduction that introduces the researcher and explains the interview’s purpose. For example: “Hello, I’m Erica, a UX designer at MM company. I’m researching in preparation for building an eCommerce shop for eco-friendly wear. I’d like to ask about your experience with eco-friendly clothing. You don’t have to answer anything you’re uncomfortable with, and there’s no right or wrong response—every answer helps my research.”
Before you begin, leave room for the interviewee to ask questions.
4. Choose the location of the user interview
It may not seem like much, but where you conduct user interviews significantly impacts your research.
For best results, choose a neutral environment where your subject feels comfortable. If you run the interview inside your company environment, the interviewee may feel compelled to give answers that favor your brand.
Online video interviews are another way to keep the interviewee comfortable and the environment unbranded.
User interview best practices
User interviews succeed when the interviewee feels comfortable and heard—and when you’ve prepared properly. Here are the practices that matter most:
1. Make the user feel comfortable
Comfort starts with location. Choose a neutral environment where the interviewee isn’t nudged toward positive sentiments—you can even let them pick the spot.
Before you start, make it clear there’s no right or wrong answer, so the interviewee can respond without fear of being judged. Most importantly, truly listen. Acknowledge their answers by nodding and making frequent eye contact.
2. Leave room for the interviewee to lead
User interviews need some structure to stay on course, but leave room for the interviewee to lead. That gives them time to elaborate on their thoughts, concerns, frustrations, or praise.
Take on the role of a guide—you’ll glean more insights when the interviewee leads.
3. Prepare questions before the interview
Having relevant questions ready beforehand keeps the interview aligned with your research objectives. It also helps you manage time, since you know how many questions there are and roughly how long each takes.
4. Anticipate different responses, and construct follow-up questions based on your research goals
Sometimes the interviewee won’t answer the way you anticipated. Have follow-up questions ready to clarify and dig deeper.
5. Write dialogue-provoking interview questions
Open questions beat closed ones because they allow clarification and exploration. Most of the data from user interviews should be qualitative, which is only achievable through dialogue-provoking questions.
Don’t ask users directly what they want—often, users don’t know what experience they’d prefer. Instead:
- Gather context about your goal for a particular design, product, or service
- Ask questions that provide data you can use to analyze how you’re doing against that goal
- Ask questions that uncover how else you can improve what you’re already doing
These three categories provide contextual data and paint a picture of the experience consumers actually want.
Example questions to include:
- What is this product/service helping you achieve?
- What would you change about this product or service?
- What is your favorite part about this product or service?
- What has been your experience using this product or service?
- What’s the most challenging part about using this product or service?
- What would stop you from using this product or service?
6. Avoid leading, closed, or vague questions
Every question needs to hit the mark the first time. Keep questions open and dialogue-stimulating, and never leading—leading questions generate biased responses or false sentiments.
Vary your question formats to keep the interviewee engaged. Monotonous questions and follow-ups can cost you their full attention.
7. Prepare more questions than you think you’ll have time to ask
It’s better to be over-prepared. Give more space to your main questions, but keep a backup list in case you have extra time.
8. Make notes about how the user responds as well as what they say
Record the interviewee’s responses—after getting their permission. Most researchers also take a few notes alongside the recording. Consider bringing a team member to take notes so your focus stays wholly on the interview.
Don’t just capture the words. Note what the interviewee is doing while answering, so you understand the full context of their perspective.
9. Debrief the interviewee
When the interview ends, hold a short debrief. Thank the interviewee, give them a chance to ask questions or voice concerns, and—most importantly—tell them how you plan to use their responses.
Pros of user interviews
- They give you a clear view of your target audience’s perception of your products and services
- They’re highly customizable, letting you probe specific aspects of your business
- They give researchers immediate, real-time insights
Limitations of user interviews
- Because they rely on self-reported data, participants may not recall events fully or accurately
- Participants may not know what’s relevant to a researcher and can leave out pertinent details
- They’re time intensive, so they often involve a smaller sample group than other methods
Analyzing user interview results
Once the interviews are done, the next step is analysis. This stage is time-consuming, but customer analysis software can ease the workload of sorting, summarizing, and analyzing interview data.
Quick steps for analyzing user interview data:
- Collect all (evaluative, inferential, and descriptive) data in a central location
- Fill the gaps by grouping the data by themes or questions
- Pick out common themes and consider how they relate to your target audience and product
- Keep a few quotes that concisely describe the current user experience
- Use keywords to outline the key themes that emerge
- Relate your findings to your current products or services and note areas needing improvement
User interview data makes the most sense when used with other data sources. Combining sources validates the current user experience and pinpoints gaps that need filling.
Collaborative user-research software
Manual analysis of user interview data is frustrating and slow. User research software gives researchers a faster, more accurate, and collaborative way to analyze.
Tools like ours can transcribe user-interview recordings, provide summaries, and find themes in unstructured responses. Researchers can also quickly create reports or presentations and push them to relevant stakeholders for faster decision-making.