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

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

• 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.

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.

Observing User Interviews 

• Don't say a word, you're observing
• Seriously don't, you weren't even supposed to be there today

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

Implementing User Interviews Results

• ...place the results into Dropbox/email/whatever and hope they are implemented ως δια μαγείας

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.

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

Ευχαριστούμε 🎈

Athens UX Community - Τhe power of user interviews