{"id":480,"date":"2018-05-24T15:44:18","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T15:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/?p=480"},"modified":"2018-06-26T03:01:37","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T03:01:37","slug":"the-benefits-of-user-interviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/the-benefits-of-user-interviews\/","title":{"rendered":"The benefits of user interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Not sure what your website or app users really think? Ask them!<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How many times have you asked your customers why they purchase from you? Or what might make your website experience and relationship even better? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">User interviews are a semi-structured approach to gathering feedback. They can be an effective tool in your toolbox, used during the strategy phase of a web design or app project, providing you with key insights to guide important design and technical infrastructure decisions leading to maximum success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some benefits of conducting user interviews include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Better understand why your users chose a particular product or service. This can help you improve future marketing messages on your website or even come up with more products or services.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Help prioritize new features or changes to your website, plus identify information gaps.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Provide greater empathy within your company for your customers and their experiences.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>5 recommended steps for successful user interviews:<\/b><\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Create an interview script<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Start with a list of topics you want to explore &#8211; such as your customer\u2019s goal when accessing your website or identifying information that might be missing from that experience. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Create open ended questions that you will use as your script to guide the discussion.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Identify participants <\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Three to five users is usually enough to yield useful patterns and trends. While it\u2019s tempting to add more users, the amount of new information uncovered will decrease with each user.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Focus on current customers, recently churned customers or people who have indicated that they struggled with using your site. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Run the interview<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interviews are best conducted face to face at your customer\u2019s location, however phone interviews can work as well. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ideally they are run with two researchers &#8211; one guiding the interview and the other taking diligent notes. The discussion can also be recorded with permission from the user.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the beginning, set the stage. Explain that your seeking honest feedback for your website or app and you\u2019d like to hear both their negative and positive experiences. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the interview, use follow-up questions to further explore ideas. \u00a0The goal is to have a conversation that evolves organically rather than strictly following the script.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A typical interview can run for 30-45 minutes leaving time for introductions and wrap up without making the user feel rushed. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Summarize the feedback <\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Immediately following the interview, while the information is fresh in your mind, summarize and structure the feedback so that you can easily view the information across all of the users. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Analyze the results &amp; plan next steps \u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s important to turn what you\u2019ve learned into actionable insights. Summarize the common themes or trends, then prioritize improvements based on potential impact and user goals.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Want to learn more or start incorporating user feedback to improve your website or app? <a href=\"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/contact\/\">Contact us to get a no-obligation initial consultation<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not sure what your website or app users really think? Ask them! How many times have you asked your customers why they purchase from you? Or what might make your website experience and relationship even better? User interviews are a semi-structured approach to gathering feedback. They can be an effective tool in your toolbox, used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhoot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}