📚 Contents
Now that the script and participants are ready to go, it’s time to get those interviews going!
If you’re new to facilitating, here are suggestions to help your participants feel more comfortable in sharing their experiences.
<aside> 💡 Listen more than talk! This is the #1 important rule when interviewing: Practice active listening by giving your undivided attention to the interviewee/s, focusing on their experiences which you can follow up on later in the conversation.
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Set the agenda
This should be included in your introduction. It should d****escribe what you are trying to achieve and explain how you plan to use the interview to gather relevant insights.
Building Rapport
Use positive body language: Ask yourself, what is your body saying? Non-verbal cues such as maintaining eye contact, smiling and nodding show that you’re listening, making your participants more relaxed and heard. In a virtual setting, turn your camera on.
Start general before moving towards specifics: Ask about how the course experience has been before asking for details on a particular topic, usage behavior, or habit.
Tell a story: Open-ended questions encourage your interviewee to ‘fill in the blanks’ with their experiences. This reduces assumptions on your part as well.
Avoid double-barreled questions: An interviewee will likely ask you to repeat yourself, disrupting their train of thought and delaying your chat! Focus on asking one question at a time:
❌ What project did you choose and how has it been like working through it?
✅ What project did you choose? (Then, let them answer.)
✅ How has it been like working through it?
From here, you can follow up with the **5 Whys method** to encourage the interviewee to explain their thought process aloud to clarify or dig deeper into their user journey.
Observe the 80-20 rule: They should be talking 80% of the time and you, 20%.
Let the interviewee/s take the conversation lead: If they’re answering your scripted questions without needing prompts, half the interview is done! However, be conscious of the topic steering too far away from the Research Goal. (I.e. They focus on the behavior of a team member in an interview about a newly launched UXA project)
And/Or: If there are scripted questions remaining but you’d like to follow up with new topics that your interviewee/s have mentioned:
<aside> 🚩 Set aside 5-10 minutes at the end of the interview. Tell your interviewee/s that they will have that time to discuss the subject.
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