Extreme User Interview Add/remove

Purpose:

The purpose of an extreme user interview is to gather insights from people who are either extremely familiar or completely unfamiliar with the product/service you are designing. The interview can both be used to identify what the problem is with the maybe already existing product/service or to test a new product/service as the method will highlight key issues/new opportunities for improvement.

Step by step Facilitating tips Materials needed Goes well with

Tips to include participants who are not able to:

See

If participants can not see, bring a helper or another group member if in groups to write down notes from the interview. Alternatively, bring an audio recorder and record the interview with permission from the interviewee. Afterwards, the participants' reflections can be recorded too.

Focus

If participants have a hard time concentrating for the length of the interview, arrange little breaks or bring along a co-interviewer so that you can take turns asking questions and noting down.

Speak

If participants can not speak, interviews could be conducted by bringing along a translator. Another possibility is to prepare an interview guide where the interviewees read from the guide and write down their answers.

Hear

If participants can not hear, interviews could be conducted by bringing along a translator. Another possibility is to prepare an interview guide where the interviewees read from the guide and write down their answers.

Think

If participants are overwhelmed by guiding the interview, make sure to set a lot of relevant questions, and questions to the answer of these, predefined. It might be necessary to bring a helper or team member that assists in writing down notes while conducting the interview.

Hold

If participants can not hold onto a pen, bring a helper or another group member if in groups to write down notes from the interview. Alternatively, bring an audio recorder and record the interview with permission from the interviewee. Afterwards, the participants' reflections can be recorded too.

Move

If participants can not move, bring a helper or another group member if in groups to write down notes from the interview. Alternatively, bring an audio recorder and record the interview with permission from the interviewee. Afterwards, the participants' reflections can be recorded too.

Emote

It is crucial that participants try to sympathize with the interviewees. If this is difficult, talk about the interviewees' profiles in advance in groups and eg. make personas of them to awake sympathy.

Touch

If participants can not hold onto a pen, bring a helper or another group member if in groups to write down notes from the interview. Alternatively, bring an audio recorder and record the interview with permission from the interviewee. Afterwards, the participants' reflections can be recorded too.

Overview

Input

Interviewguide

Output

Problems or key aspects to improve

Complexity

Simple

Time

1-3 hours

Participants

1-3

Activity

Core abilities:

  • Ask question
  • Take notes

Step by step:

  1. Identify users that fall under the following categories:

    1. Extremely familiar with your product/service
    2. Complete unfamiliar with your product/service
    3. Loving fan of your product/service
    4. Utterly hate your product/service

  2. Conduct interviews with each of the user groups separately.

When doing this method you should consider:

Make sure you prepare interview questions that are specific so that you get specific feedback making it easier for you to identify problems or opportunities for improvement.

If you have the time, find more than one person from each of the different user categories and interview multiple people.

If you choose to use the method within a workshop, divide your users in groups of 2-3 participants so the person being interviewed is not overwhelmed.

When conducting the interview it would be beneficial if you have the opportunity to show a mockup or prototype that the users can interact with. Having a boundary object like a physical/visual representation of your product or service makes the feedback in the interview much more valuable.

If you want to add an extra layer to the method you could include a voting method within the interview and make the user vote/argue why certain things are good/not good from their perspective.

Materials needed:

  • Interview guide
  • Pens
  • Paper