The 5 most common mistakes in user interviews

... and the 5 most useful insights for you

With the help of user interviews, information can be obtained about the experiences and needs of potential end customers in relation to the perception and benefits of the product or service. User interviews are used to identify individual needs and challenges of users in order to effectively integrate the collected findings into the design process and develop user-centered solutions. However, there are heaps of mistakes that can happen before, during and after conducting user interviews. Yes, the dreaded user interviews are difficult and sometimes even uncomfortable, but we have compiled 5 useful insights for you that will help you in the future

# 1 Talk to your customer

Everyone wants to be customer-centric, but no one wants to talk to their customers. The most important thing for customer centricity is, of course, that you actually talk to your customers and gather comprehensive information about their needs, challenges and opinions. This should be at the top of your to-do list. Because if you don't talk to your customer, if you're not "close" to them, then you can't build a truly customer-centric product. You need to understand your customer's situation, you need to have empathy in order to be able to build a solution that really inspires the customer.

# 2 Understand the WHY

The problem is that customers usually don't know what they actually want. And that's why you can't just ask: How do you want your product? If you simply follow this and do what the customer says, you will see that these products are usually not successful. As soon as you ask the customer what they want, you find yourself in the solution space. The customer then often simply talks about their wishes and ideas, which in reality are not as sensible or useful as previously assumed. That's why it's much better if you really talk about the problem space. If the customer talks about the solution space, then listen away. The problem space belongs to the customer, the solution space belongs to you. As a product manager, you question the WHY? So what is the real problem or need that needs to be solved? It is important to choose the right method to gain valuable insights through user interviews and UX research.

# 3 Away with superficiality

The way in which many interviews are conducted is problematic. Superficial interviews don't reveal the things that should actually come out. It's not about writing down feature requests. It's about the details of needs and problems. And you are the detective. The interviewees often have to be challenged. What is the real outcome? What is really the goal? Better ask again. Understand the meaning. This can sometimes be a little uncomfortable, but will give you much better results.

# 4 Bring the customer voice into play

The challenge is that decisions are often made independently of the people who actually did the research. So you should try to bring the decision-makers together to talk about the details. Simply listing facts is not enough here. In the end, it is always the customer's voice, the emotions and the exact words that were chosen that are convincing. The stronger this comes through, the better. Because the ultimate truth, if you like, lies with the customer. Does the customer buy, does he not buy? So take the customer's voice with you. As original as possible. You can also use audio or video recordings. You will only find the right product or feature if you talk to people who will use it later. These results from participants will help you to influence decisions in the organization.

# 5 Compare your qualitative data with quantitative data

UX research combines customer interaction, external data and internal data to find out more about the customer. There are different views on how interviews should actually be evaluated. Think about how the different views can be prioritized and then look for evidence for the truth, so to speak. This can also be data that already exists in the company, which you can request from a data team, market studies or other sources. The aim is to find evidence in the data that supports the truth of what you have learned from the interviews. When it comes to products or features that do not yet exist, you can conduct experiments or tests to collect data. This does not have to be done at the maximum expansion stage, but can be tested on a smaller scale.

Short and sweet: asking questions, listening and understanding the WHY

In principle, it's simple. You talk to your customers to understand the details of the situation. You move around in the problem space, in your customer's space. You listen to the problems and listen to the solutions. First you need to understand the WHY. And the deeper you go into the problem, the better the solution will be. And ultimately, the customer is the ultimate decision-making body. You should do little filtering, bullet-pointing or summarizing, but include as much original customer material as possible in the evaluation. Tests and experiments are also helpful here, as they can be meaningful even on a small scale and can help to optimize the solution.

In addition, practical tips for conducting user interviews can help to obtain high-quality information from users.

Our tip for you: Test and learn from it!

What can be tested in advance should be tested in the design process. After each test, you know more than you knew beforehand. It's your job as a product manager to use the developer treasure trove, the developer resource, as efficiently as possible. And this includes being able to assess very well that what goes into development will also create added value for the customer at the end of the day. Protect treasury development from unnecessary feature requests and things that no one will use afterwards anyway.

We hope that user interviews will be a little higher up on your to-do list from now on. All beginnings are difficult, but definitely doable. If you have unanswered questions or are in a difficult situation with your boss or customer, get in touch with us. We will be happy to help you.