Preparing your interview study
Last updated on 2025-11-04 | Edit this page
Overview
Questions
- What are interview studies and when are they used?
- What materials do I need to prepare before conducting an interview?
- What should be included in an interview protocol?
- What are the risks I should consider before conducting an interview study and how do I proactively mitigate them?
Objectives
- Understand when to use an interview study
- Develop and refine an interview protocol based on the target audience
What are interview studies?
[Author note: This episode is incomplete and needs some more information and writing to complete]
During an interview study, researchers meet 1-on-1 with users to conduct ‘user interviews’, structured or semi-structured conversations where the researcher can ask questions about a topic and listen to the user’s response. Outside of the UXR world, user interviews may be called ‘stakeholder interviews’, ‘semi-structured interviews’, ‘qualitative interviews’, etc, depending on the researcher’s background or field of study.
User interviews are a qualitative UXR method. They are best used when you - Have more open-ended questions about your tool, - Are still ideating (in discovery mode) or iterating on your design - Are looking for deeper insight into your users’ thoughts, feelings, experiences, and challenges.
In particular, user interviews are useful when you still have probing or complex questions that can be addressed via direct communication with your target user audience.
As per the nngroup, you can see the differences between user interviews and usability tests here: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/user-interviews/
The main points are that user interviews:
- Generate new knowledge about your users, their experiences, needs, and pain points
- Are attitudinal aka we collect participants’ reported behaviors, thoughts, and feelings
- Empathize the stage of the design-thinking model (or in discovery)
- Participants don’t review or try a design UI/GUI or any visual input
- Has more natural interaction like regular eye contact, facilitators are warmer and approachable
How to Develop the Interview Protocol
What materials do I need to prepare before conducting an interview?
An interview protocol is a guide the researcher or research team follows as they conduct each interview. Interview protocols are prepared ahead of time and often include a detailed interview script, research goals, a list of questions, and other information that can help the interviewer better facilitate the conversation. Before you begin developing the interview protocol, you should have an idea of what you want to learn and who your target user audience is.
Talking to users can feel intimidating! The process of developing an interview protocol will help you keep track of your questions, better understand what data you would like to collect, and gain confidence as you mentally prepare to conduct the interview.
What to consider as you draft the interview protocol:
- What language should you draft ahead of time to help you explain the tool or interview process to the participant?
- What questions do you have for your target users? What potential follow-up questions can you anticipate?
- What notes will help you facilitate and keep track of the conversation?
- What outputs are you interested in producing from the information collected during the interviews?
Challenge
Follow these steps to help you define and draft your interview protocol.
- Step 1: Write down your research questions
- Step 2: Develop interview questions based on your research questions
- Step 3: Refine your interview questions
Interview questions should be open-ended and enable the user to consider what order you would like to ask your questions. Start with simpler, or ‘easier’ questions, to build rapport with your user.
Resource: Outline for an Interview Protocol:
- Introduction
- Warmup
- Questions
- Follow-up Questions
- Conclusion
Interview protocols can be flexible and adaptable to the particular user you are speaking to. You may not need to ask all of the questions if you feel like the user has already provided a comprehensive answer while talking about a different question. You could skip around as you gain confidence and if the flow of the conversation has led to a particular question.
What do you need to include in your interview protocol
Draft 3 interview questions
[Content needs adding/editing]
https://superbloom.design/learning/blog/user-testing-cheatsheet/
Additional Content to Consider
What are the risks I should consider before conducting an interview study and how do I proactively mitigate them?
Media Consent Form
[Content needs adding/editing]
Challenge
[Content needs adding/editing]
| Statement | What do you need to prepare? |
|---|---|
| You will be asking participants about personally identifiable information such as their birthday or location. | #Privacy Policy #Media Consent Form #All of the above #None of the above |
| You will be anonymizing any personally identifiable data collected during the user study. | #Privacy Policy #Media Consent Form #All of the above #None of the above |
| You would like to record audio but not video during the interviews. | #Privacy Policy #Media Consent Form #All of the above #None of the above |
| ADD | |
| ADD |