User Interviews in Product Development
Athens UX Community - Τhe power of user interviews
The Seque story so far
- When did it start
- Over some drinks and a sketch book in Εξάρχεια
- How did it start
Lagavulin Single Malt 10 Years
Armagnac
Dimitri James Tsiflitzis
I'm a simple man trying to make my way in the universe
Why perform user interviews
- You don't know anything, or assuming too much; and are looking for answers
- You might find out alternative solutions to the problem you are trying to solve
- Not everyone does them [citation needed]
- So it's a completitive advantage
Observing User Interviews
I had the opportunity to be part of several user interviews in the early stages of Seque.
- Feelings evoked and facial expressions made while describing their problems and/or issues.
- Body language when describing positive or negative experiences.
- (In our case) Their daily work routines which was one of our carefully crafted questions.
I was able to observe many user aspects. These stand out:
Observing User Interviews
- After initial greetings be invisible
- Camera off
- Mic off
- Actively Listen and don't multitask
- Take notes only if something was important
- Because insight, that is meaningful, has the tendency to evaporate then and there.
Do's
Observing User Interviews
- Don't say a word, you're observing
- Seriously don't, you weren't even supposed to be there today
Dont's
After conducting User Interviews and...
- Video is exported ➡ Watch them all
- Notes and summaries have been written out (έχουν καθαρογραφεί) ➡ Read them all
- Transcripts have been written ➡ Read them all?
- Conversations have been made
- A presentation from the Interviewer has been given
⬆ The results are ready to be reflected in your Product(s)
Implementing User Interviews Results
- ...place the results into Dropbox/email/whatever and hope they are implemented ως δια μαγείας
Don't just
Implementing User Interviews Results
- Use the trust system
- The interviewer should be free to create tasks/work/user stories out of the low hanging fruit straight away
- No point in having experts if they can't take initiative or if you tell them what they have to do
- Handing over results does not mean crossing some sort of boundary between UX and Development.
This takes care of the surface level results so you can focus on deeper insights
First
Implementing User Interviews Results
Interlude
- Take your time to think strategically
- Define the key elements for each feature or solution
- Create solutions that fit comfortably within your teams constraints
- Focus on tasks that create value and don't just create features
- Place you bets.
Implementing User Interviews Results
- Prioritise the results
- Severity of the problem solved
- Benefit to the user
- Intersection set of all features (ish)
- Keep an open mind
- Many of your assumptions might be demolished by what your interviewees had to say
Implementing User Interviews Results
- Create User stories/Tasks/Issues etc. for each one of your findings
- We used a Shape Up derivative for Seque
- Two tracks with six week cycles
- Card goes in ~> Card comes out
- One board
- Four columns (Backlog, Todo, Doing, Shippable)
- Continue keeping an open mind
- New ways or features to solve your problem, that you hadn't anticipated, will come up
Implementing User Interviews Results
- Might have to re-evalute your existing roadmap
- You might need to discard pre-interview features because
- They never came up
- They made your product too complicated
- They did come up but people poked so many holes into them
- They don't actually solve your problem
- This is unused functionality
Implementing User Interviews Results
Results
Conversations
No confirmation required stories
User stories
Interviews
Discard features
Product Iteration
Ευχαριστούμε 🎈
Athens UX Community - Τhe power of user interviews
User Interviews in Product Development
By tsif
User Interviews in Product Development
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