1
0 Comments

4 practice questions to help you become a better user interviewer

Hi all! This post contains practice questions to help you improve your skills as a user interviewer.

To uncover user needs, you must know how to talk to users

You may have read The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick or Zero to Sold by Arvid Kahl. These books contain excellent advice on how to discover user problems through “customer discovery” or “customer development" interviews.

Like any skill, interviewing requires practice. Try answering these practice questions to hone your skills.

The scenario

You’re designing an app that helps divorced parents share child expenses. You’re interviewing a potential user, Debbie, who is a divorced mother. You want to understand her needs in order to determine what features to build.

Practice question #1

The best choice is:

This question asks about the status quo. It’s important to understand the status quo in order to understand how to improve upon it.

Both of the other choices mention the idea for an app. Those choices are not as good because they place social pressure on Debbie to compliment the idea, even if an app isn’t right for her.

Practice question #2

The best choice is:

It’s always a good idea to ask “why.” This helps us understand Debbie’s underlying motivations.

The second choice, “How can that process be improved?” is not as good because it asks Debbie to design the solution for us. She may not know the optimal solution, but she probably does know about her life and problems.

The third choice, “What would you think of an app that could automatically message your ex-husband to ask him to submit expenses?,” is also not as good. Debbie’s most likely response is “that would be cool.” That wouldn’t tell us anything useful. Rather than asking about a hypothetical, it’s better to ask about Debbie’s real life and her underlying motivations.

Practice question #3

The best choice is:

This question is great because it helps us understand the steps of Debbie’s current process. That will help us determine which step to improve.

The second choice, “How do you format the spreadsheet?” is unlikely to unearth critical pain that Debbie is experiencing.

The third question, “Is this the typical way that divorced parents share expenses?” is also a poor choice. Debbie is an expert on her own life, but she can only speculate about others’ lives. To get accurate information, keep the conversation focused on Debbie.

Practice question #4

The best choice is:

Whenever it sounds like an interview subject hasn’t revealed an important detail, repeat back 1-3 critical words with an upward inflection.

Here, when Debbie said, “usually,” she hinted that she sometimes does not get paid. That’s an important thread to explore further. People buy products when their money, time, or reputation is at stake. A failure to be paid on time may be a critical problem that we can discover.

The first choice, “How much does he usually pay?,” is not as good because it misses a key opportunity to explore the thread that Debbie hinted at about getting paid on time.

The third choice, “Do you wish there were an easier way to get paid?” is not a good choice. To ask that question is to fish for compliments. Instead, it’s better to understand Debbie’s problem.

Let’s see how Debbie responds:

We're beginning to uncover what may be a critical problem for Debbie! That problem is not getting paid on time.

Key takeaways

Do you want to see more posts like this?

I'm considering making posts like this on a regular basis if there is enough interest.

If you would like (and would pay for) posts like these, reach out to me at [email protected].

I'm giving away another free post just like this one to the people who email me there!

Thanks for reading and I hope you found it valuable!

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 29 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 16 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments