How do you conduct user research and interviews?
As a product manager and founder I have found it a hassle setting up user interviews. I am wondering how other people approach this problem and if anyone has good tools or methods that they use.
As a product manager and founder I have found it a hassle setting up user interviews. I am wondering how other people approach this problem and if anyone has good tools or methods that they use.
Tools are often scaffolding for a certain type of thinking. An intentional outcome of deep understanding is what you should strive for. As with iterations on your product, you should reflect on your research process with your team. Focus on unexpected results. Confirmation bias is a bitch.
Get acquainted with the Job to be done framework to open up people's mind. If you want more info on how to do this, you can DM me!
I would be curious to hear your thoughts more in depth, what is the best way to DM you (since no DMs currently on IH)?
DM me on Twitter @coeluh
Hi jdiprete,
We used Prolific to run a similar survey a few months ago, and it was one of the best things we did in the history of our little company. It is slightly expensive though.
I also talked to a few other folks and learned about services like Respondent.Io. Since we are building a content discovery product, we try to organize such information inside a knowledge map. Hope it is helpful to you!
https://sanderling.app/search/concept/target-audience
Thank you, that is very helpful! Those seem like some great tools for user research, I definitely have to try those out.
I'm also curious how you handle talking to your current customers for product feedback, and what you do with that feedback.
I am using very basic approaches, like chat apps, Google Hangouts, etc. I put all feedback inside my notes, discuss with my co-founder, and translate some of the results into product improvements.
That is similar to how I have approached it as well. I'm trying to figure out if there are any tools or methods to help keep track of the notes, I have found they often get lost in Slack conversations or in notes that I never go back to.
User researcher here, hi :)
There are a few different approaches you can take depending on what part of the product journey you are on
Blue sky discovery - set up unstructured interview video calls with potential target. Ask Whys and avoid leading questions | After a 2-3 interviews you may want to revise you script based on what you are hearing and probe with more specific questions
New feature in a product - here again you may start with a survey and send out to a greater user base and narrow down a few people to do interviews with
In both scenarios spend a few minutes understanding who these people are as opposed to only asking about what they think of your product - this helps in future product decisions
5-6 interviews are generally enough to start drawing patterns.
Resources - The Mom Test, Just enough research are good starters to read.
Compensating the people for their time if you have the resources is always a good idea. Try gift cards or a discount on your product
Finding people to interview is always tough, you can ask in community forums / in your personal network or platforms like user testing. When you interview someone ask them to connect you with others in their network to talk to.
Hope this starter helps
Thanks, this is very helpful!
Mom test all the way 😅
While building my primary project, I detoured and built an automated Interview “feature” that I’ve now been using to invite potential users to answer randomized questions from a stable of about 125 pretreated questions in different categories. Basically I built my own tool that allows me to:
When it generates, it pulls from a premade list of questions stored in my data base (about 125 questions I created in various categories) and I’ve built it to only select a certain number of questions per category, I set how many total questions to include, and I’ve made an option per question to allow the questionnaire to always include that specific question.
All the answers are store by interview in my database.
I also built an admin section that allows me to review the answers and ad notes or follow-up questions to get better answers if the interviewer provide weak answers.
It works great but cold emailing is still a numbers game and out of 125 sends I’ve only gotten 12 replies and about 8 completed interviews back. But the process is pretty streamlined 😂
That sounds like a useful feature! I am wondering if offering some sort of incentive to complete the survey/interview could help with the response rate. It's always tricky to get a high hit rate on cold emailing, but at least you have streamlined it to make it easier!
I've found the trick is to have shorter interviews for a very specific type of feedback. Instead of asking the big "what do you think of this product" type sessions where it takes a lot of time and energy on both sides, stick to 15-20 mins max with a focused question you're trying to answer.
People are also much more likely to say yet to an interview if it's shorter.
Highly recommend the Mom Test for specific frameworks about 'good questions' and how to notate the insights you generate.
That definitely makes sense, thanks! I'm also wondering what you do with the specific feedback you get, do you factor that into your product roadmap? How do you organize the feedback in a meaningful way to help guide decisions?
This is a really great question, if you read the Mom Test there is a specific framework to note down specific details. I then put these into a notion board and cross-reference everything so you can start to see threads and common insights. I can highly recommend giving it a try!