In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews are one of the most versatile and impactful methods in the researcher’s toolbox. By interviewing people in the target market, researchers are able to build frameworks around peoples’ context, problem, and existing solutions, leading to better informed design and product development.

Effective Interviews

An in-depth interview is most effective as a conversation rather than a list of questions (especially interrogation-style!). Ideally, you want to get people to tell you stories about their attitudes and behaviour. As a researcher, you want to build space for listening and empathy, with the flexibility to ask follow-up questions that may not be scripted in your Discussion Guide. This is why researchers typically opt for a semi-structured interview style.

Furthermore, an interview is not just idle chit-chatting. Effective interviews tie back to the assumptions you have drafted in your research plan, to gather and evaluate evidence against those assumptions. You know you’ve done a round of successful interviews if they generate directional insights and ideas for the design and development phases.

Prep Materials: Discussion Guide

For semi-structured interviews, it is good practice to have a discussion guide handy ahead of the interviews. These can be created in a shared document such as Google Spreadsheet, so notes from the interview can be taken directly in the doc. When drafting your discussion guide, be mindful of how long the entire interview will be. Interviews become less effective past the 60-minute mark. There may also be minor tweaks to your guide if the interview is in-person vs. remote, in terms of introduction and expectation-setting. Flow-wise, you’ll want to organize the questions like an hourglass - start with broader questions, then transition into more specific questions relating to your topic, then broadening up again towards the conclusion. Avoid drafting any leading questions (e.g. “Isn’t this a great idea?”) as you prepare the questions.

We’ve put together a template you could copy and use for your in-depth interviews. The template includes 3 sheets: a Summary sheet with important high-level project information, a Participants sheet with dates and schedules of the interviews, and a discussion guide sheet with sample questions.

Let’s now look at the discussion guide in detail. The different sections of the discussion guide include:

Researcher Introduction

Spend 5 minutes to do a bit of small talk, introduce yourself and the topic and set the expectations about the interview. The main goal of this section is to get participants comfortable - after all, most people find it awkward to talk to strangers! Introduce yourself and ask people about how their day is going. Then put people in the right frame of mind by introducing the topic you will be talking about (being mindful not to lead them into specific sub-topics so early on).

You’ll also want to set the terms of consent and non-disclosure agreements at this point (if not already done so). Let people know that they can refuse to answer questions that they feel uncomfortable about, and always ask for permission about any recordings you will do. Set up the recording devices away from the participant so they remain inconspicuous.

Participant Introduction

Now is the time to get more contextual background information about your participants. Ask relevant demographic and behavioural questions that can help you better understand the stories they will share later. For example, if you are investigating parents’ pains around kids’ education, your introductory questions can include how many kids are in the family, how old they are, where the family lives, what the kids’ current education entails, what jobs the parents hold (and any time constraints associated with the roles), etc. Start with context-building questions, then gradually transition into more specific topics or sub-topics for the next section.

Topics / Sub-Topics

This section can be organized into subsections, depending on the topics you want to investigate. You can organize the subsections by the assumptions you’re gathering evidence for, or distinct experiences to dive into, or types of pain points to contextualize. Regardless of how you structure this section or subsections, make sure the flow makes sense. You want to avoid jumping around topics and making memory retrieval difficult.

Here are some common techniques you can use to go in-depth in each topic or theme:

In-Depth Interviews

Conclusion

Finally, re-broaden the questions as you wrap up. Have people summarize their thoughts and feelings, ask them about what they would change about the product/process, etc. When you wrap up, reiterate how valuable their feedback has been and why, and thank them sincerely. See if they have any questions for the team. Finally, clarify the time and method of incentives (if interviewee is paid).

And phew - that is the general structure of your Discussion Guide!

Prep Work: Before the Interview

Before your first scheduled interview begins, you should have your research plan and discussion guide ready. Hopefully, you've also had the chance to schedule your next participants. Here are some additional components you might consider:

• Setting up the interview room to support A/V, recording, etc.

• Assigning roles to your team and training them on each role (e.g. notetaker, observer)

• Internal pilot interview (if time allows)

During the Interview

With all the prep work done, it is now interview time! As mentioned previously, the key to a successful user interview is not just to have a prepared list of questions in your discussion guide, but to ask unscripted follow-up questions in response to the conversation. Not only does this show that you are actively listening, but will also provide you with added clarity, insights and ideas.

Here are some themes to pay attention to during interviews:

Time Management

In practice, the discussion guide and ad-hoc follow-up questions will likely tip you over the planned time limits per section. The more engrossed you are in the interviews, the more likely you will run out of time. Highlight/bold the most important questions in your discussion guide beforehand, so if you do run low on time for the section, you can still make sure to have gotten the key information you need.

Body Language

Making your interviewees feel heard through appropriate body language is just as important as asking the right questions. Keeping regular eye contact (don’t stare!), smiling, taking attentive notes and nodding along sounds easy but doing this on a consistent basis takes deliberate practice. Being curious isn’t enough, you need to look the part.

Power Dynamic

You’ll also need to be mindful of the “power dynamic” in the room. Certain conscious and unconscious actions project power and dominance over others. If your interviewee feels intimidated, they’re less likely to feel empowered to speak their truth.

To mitigate this, practice the following:

• Avoid making yourself “larger” by using a wide stance, “taller” by putting them in a lower seat, or “closed” by crossing your arms and legs.

• Don’t invade their space by leaning into their personal bubble or touching their things without their consent.

• Go meet them on their own turf when possible.

• While having someone there to take notes shows that you are listening, don’t surround them with people.

• Avoid leading your interviewees by reacting strongly to their responses. Nodding your head “yes!” when you hear something that confirms your assumptions (also known as confirmation bias) or raising an eyebrow when you hear something unexpected (also known as making people feel self-conscious) is a good way to muddy up your results.

Post-Interview

It is strongly suggested to build 10 minutes between interviews to talk through the key insights/learnings/ideas you’ve gleaned with your observer/note-taker. Capture your insights and learnings in the note-taking doc. You are not doing full synthesis of the data in 10 minutes, but you are capturing top-of-mind items to jumpstart idea-generation later.

Now go rinse-and-repeat!

Sources:

McCammon, B. (n.d.). Semi-Structured Interviews. Retrieved from http://designresearchtechniques.com/casestudies/semi-structured-interviews/
How to Conduct User Interviews. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/how-to-conduct-user-interviews
Leading Questions. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/interviews/leading-questions.html
The Big 6: An Active Listening Skill Set. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ccl.org/multimedia/podcast/the-big-6-an-active-listening-skill-set/

Further reading:

https://sociology.fas.harvard.edu/files/sociology/files/interview_strategies.pdf