Effective Listening Techniques For User Experience Interviews

Three things I'm working on to improve my interview moderation skills: 1. No elipsis questions ❓ I'm working on leaving questions at the question without giving examples (these often trail off with an elipsis): "How do you communicate with your co-workers? Do you use texting, email, Zoom, a chat app...?" It's often instinctive to ask questions like this in everyday life (especially for over-explainers like myself 👋 ), but they can get in the way of what you're really trying to accomplish in a user interview. To paraphrase Steve Portigal on the Design Better podcast: When we give suggestions of possible answers in the question, it can limit the participant's ability to reflect, unintentionally train them how they should respond, and get in the way of deep & authentic responses. We often have really good intentions for asking elipsis questions. We want to build rapport, scaffold, connect, and support participants, but these questions can actually have the opposite effect. 2. Allow silence 🤫 We've all heard this one before, but it's much easier said than done. Allowing silence during an interview gives the participant time to think and reflect, often leading to deeper and more insightful responses. It can also make the interviewee feel more comfortable and less rushed, encouraging them to share more candidly and thoroughly. I've noticed that when I'm taking notes during an interview, sometimes I'll need an extra beat to finish up a note after a participant answers a question. That unintentional moment of silence while I'm typing after I think they're done responding often leads to participants' adding an even more deep or reflective response that I wouldn't have gotten if I had rushed on to the next question. I'm working on doing this much more intentionally. 3. Redirect if participants start talking about others ↪️ I'm working on redirecting when people say things like: "Well, I could see some people using this feature, maybe if they need to communicate with external and internal team members..." or "Maybe this would work for iPhone users..." When a participant starts talking about what other people might want rather than their own opinions, you can gently guide the conversation back to their personal perspective. Remind them that you’re interested in their personal experiences and use probing questions to bring the discussion back to their own needs & opinions. Acknowledge their points about others, but reframe and redirect the conversation to highlight their individual perspective. “You mentioned that others might find this useful. How about you? How would you use it?” “I can see why that might be important to some. How do you feel about it? How would it impact your experience?” “That’s interesting. Can you tell me more about what you personally would like or need in this product?” 🤔 What are things you're working on to improve your interview moderation skills? #UserInterviews #UXResearch #UserExperience #UsabilityTesting

Before interviewing customers, learn how to interview customers. It’s a lot of work to get a customer on the phone. And if you have a poor interviewing technique, you won’t glean valuable information and could annoy some of your best customers. My years in sales and experience with customer interviews taught me that the trick isn't in what you ask but in how you listen. So, here are 3 subtle interview tactics that changed how I interview: 1️⃣ The mirror technique Don't just ask "tell me more." Instead, repeat their last few words and pose back as a question. Customer: "Your software is frustrating." ❌ "Oh, can you elaborate?" ✅ "Frustrating?" The customer will naturally open up without feeling interrogated. 2️⃣ Strategic silence When a customer starts rambling or gets heated, use silence to your advantage. Go quiet after the customer stops speaking and let the pause linger for 5-6 seconds. It feels awkward, but that's the point. This works by: ➖Regaining control of the conversation ➖Giving angry customers space to reset ➖Steering the discussion back on track 3️⃣ Detailed validation Instead of the generic "got it" responses, prove you're listening: "So what I'm hearing is [specific point 1], [specific point 2], and [specific point 3]. Did I capture that correctly?" People want to feel that they are heard and love when someone proves that they are listening. This builds trust fast. Great customer insights don't come from asking perfect questions. They come from listening and knowing how to use that information to guide the conversation.

Don’t even think about p-values, thematic coding, or conjoint analysis until you’ve truly learned to LISTEN 👂 It sounds so simple, but how many people people can’t (or more accurately WON’T) listen to what customers tell them in interviews? And to be clear, there’s a lot of nuance here. You can’t just take what they tell you at face value. This is something I learned a LOT about in my years as a police detective doing criminal investigations: → They might be nervous or embarrassed and hesitate to tell the full truth → They may not have the vocabulary to express themselves → They could simply misremember something That’s why you need to invest time and energy into active listening as a skill that you polish like any other professional skill: → When to ask follow-up questions and go deeper → What their tone, body language, or cadence is telling you → When to drop a line of questions to preserve your rapport with the interviewee → How to ask for more detail without leading them → etc… What are your favorite listening techniques for interviews? ===== 👋 I'm Ari... a criminal investigator turned customer investigator 🤝 I help Product and Marketing teams 10x the value of their research ✉️ DM me to see how we can work together