Understanding your users is an important step to build a successful product. This workshop on user interviews will help you learn how to plan and conduct effective user interviews.

Workshop Description

The goal of this workshop is to help participants understand how to prepare and facilitate user interviews. I’ve designed this workshop to mix theory with real-world examples, interactive exercises, and practical tools like my user interview cards, guide template and Miro / Figma templates.

I’ll teach participants the theory around user interviews: the different types and formats, how to plan them, how to structure an interview guide. We’ll work on how to write good and effective interview questions, by improving poorly written ones. We’ll then work through a mock research project where participants will draft an interview script using my user interview cards.

I’ll teach participants how to facilitate a good interview session. And how to take useful notes. Participants will then practice the roles of interviewer, note-taker. And they will also be put in the shoes of an interview participant.

There are 2 options for this workshop:

• In person: we will use my interview questions and follow-up physical cards.
• Remote: we will use my Miro / Figma board a break-out rooms for the practical exercises

We will finish on some theory on summarizing / analyzing of the data. And participants will get to write a short summary of their findings.

Time estimated: 3 to 4 hours of workshop.

Language: I can do this workshop in English and in French.

Workshop assets: interview cards (Miro, Figma, or PDF), interview cheat sheet and checklist

As part of this workshop, you and your team will also get free access to a lot of my resources, to help you save times on your next interviews:

• If this is a remote workshop: the Miro board we used during the workshop, that you can re-use to build your own interview guides (also available on my shop, in Miro and Figma format if you only want the board without the workshop)
• If this is in person: access to my User Interview – Question Cards (43 printable cards): a set of interview and follow up cards to help you build your guides
• My interview cheatsheet, that contains an A4 poster that you can print, and a list of question fragment you can use
• My user interview guide template, and a help sheet to help you write better questions
• a PDF version of the workshop slides.

Learning outcomes

Participants will be able to plan and facilitate user interview sessions effectively, including question formulation and note-taking. This includes:

• Understand the fundamentals of user interviews and their importance in user-centered design.
• Develop the skills to create a detailed and effective user interview guide.
• Learn how to formulate clear, insightful, and unbiased interview questions.
• Learn how to avoid the traps of bad biased questions
• Learn techniques for taking useful and actionable notes during user interviews.
• Learn how to summarize and analyzing qualitative data from user interviews.
• Practice creating and using interview scripts through hands-on exercises.
• Experience different roles within an interview session, including interviewer, note-taker, and participant.

Target Audience

Intended Audience:  designers (product designers, web designers, UI designers) who want to improve their current product design process, learn more about UX research and interviews, or transition into UX design from another area in tech.

• You’re a designer (UI, product, web, etc.). You work with interfaces, developers, and project managers. You want to improve your user interview skills to build a more user-centered design process.
• You’re a product manager. You work with cross-functional teams and want to become an effective advocate for user interviews in your team.
• You’re someone working on a product, perhaps in roles like software development or IT support. You want to transition into a UX design role to directly impact user experiences and product success.
• You’re a business owner or entrepreneur in the tech industry. You work with different teams to build products and want to understand the value of user interviews to guide your product development towards user-centric solutions.

Level: intermediate, people who already have an experience with product and services

Prerequisites  

What prior knowledge or experience is necessary?

• An understanding or experience of digital product development process: stages and roles involved in designing and building a product.
• Familiarity with technologies like digital whiteboards (Miro)
• Basic understanding of user psychology: any prior knowledge in human-computer interaction, psychology, or similar fields would be helpful but not required, as understanding user behavior is at the core of UX design

Workshop Detailed Plan

• Introduction to what are (and are not) user interviews
• When to conduct interviews
• How to plan user interviews
• How to structure an interview guide
• How to write good interview questions
• How to conduct and facilitate an interview session
• The role of note-taking during interviews
• Methods to analyze quantitative data from interviews
• Q a As at the end of the session

Practical exercises during the workshop:

• Draft an interview script for a fake research project using question cards
• Practice the role of the interviewer, the role of the note taker, and put themselves in the shoes of an interview participant.
• Summarize the interview session they conducted.

Workshop Dates for 2024

There are no public dates scheduled for this workshop for 2024. If you are a company and want to schedule a private session with me, please reach out via my contact form.

If you are a workshop or conference organizer and want me to come and do this workshop at your event, drop me an email!