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Writing an effective guide for a ux interview.

February 28, 2021 2021-02-28

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In the discovery phase of product development, user interviews are often used to capture important information about users: their backgrounds, beliefs, motivations, desires, or needs. Typically, the interviews carried out at this stage are semistructured (referred to as “depth interviews” by market researchers) — they generally have a predefined structure, but also allow the interviewer the flexibility to follow up on significant statements made by participants.

In a semistructured interview, the interviewer uses an interview guide (also referred to as a discussion guide). Unlike an interview script — which is used in structured interviews — an interview guide can be used flexibly: interviewers can ask questions in any order they see fit, omit questions, or ask questions that are not in the guide.

A good interview guide paves the way for a deep, free-flowing conversation with participants. (Obviously, the way you conduct the interview will also be important, but that’s another article!) Interview guides should include a few concise, open-ended questions to encourage participants to tell their stories. These will be followed by carefully crafted, probing questions to uncover motivations or beliefs behind certain reported behaviors or utterances.

Constructing a good interview guide can be tricky and time-consuming. It’s not uncommon to spend a full day crafting one. However, it’s important to have one to ensure you get the most out of your interviews. Without an interview guide you run the risk of:

Asking leading questions as you try to think of questions on the spot
Not covering topics relevant to your research questions in each interview

Ultimately, without an interview guide, you are in danger of compromising the validity of your data. Here are some steps meant to help you create an interview guide if you’re new to this practice.

Sometimes the research questions are clear and obvious. However, sometimes they’re not. Maybe you’ve realized you need to speak to users because you don’t know anything about them. Good! But what do you want to find out from them? These are your research questions. Write these out first before working on your interview guide, as they will shape your interview questions. Below are some examples of research questions:

What are users’ expectations in this situation?
How do users make a decision in this situation?
How have users managed to solve this problem in the past?
What aspects of this product do users care most about, and why?

Next, note down all interview questions that come to mind. It doesn’t matter whether they are good or poor — you’ll deal with that later. You can use mind maps , digital whiteboards, or a simple list — whatever works for you! Sometimes, further research questions pop up here. That’s fine; add them to your list of research questions.

It’s typical after step 2 to have a long list of mostly closed questions. Those kinds of questions wouldn’t make for a good interview because they won’t allow for unanticipated stories and statements to emerge and can limit your ability to build rapport with the participant. (Rapport is important if you’re looking to gather accurate, in-depth information from your participants.)

Review your list of questions and ask yourself, for each interview question, is there a broader, more open-ended version of that question that you can ask instead?

For example, consider the following closed questions that could be asked in an interview with an employee.

Do you work in an office?
Is the work mostly desk-based or paper-based?
Do you have to attend meetings during the workday?
Do you work in a team?

The above questions could be answered by asking the participant to describe a typical day at work. It’s likely that in doing so, the participant may cover all or many of the above. If the participant has not covered everything, then some of these can be asked as follow-up questions.

Example questions, that prompt the user to recall a certain event and are similar to those used in the critical-incident method , are excellent for gathering stories and unanticipated statements. For instance, imagine you’re conducting an interview to learn about people’s experiences cooking at home. The following example questions provide the opportunity for participants to tell many different stories and give you a glimpse into their lives.

Tell me about the last time you cooked at home.
Tell me about a time where you cooked something new.
Tell me about a time when you cooked something that turned out well.
Tell me about a time when you cooked something that didn’t turn out as you hoped.
Tell me about a time when you were thinking about cooking something but decided to get takeout instead?

Align each interview question to your research questions. If you have research questions that are not addressed by any of your interview questions, fill in the gap by crafting some more interview questions. Repeat step 3 if needed.

The interview guide can include your research questions. Some researchers like to remind themselves of the aims of the research by displaying these either at the top of the guide or alongside the interview questions.

To make the conversation flow in a logical order and seem natural think about the best order for your questions . For example, if you’re talking about an experience people have had, it makes sense to move in a chronological order. If the experience has set phases (such as discover , choose , purchas e, use , review ) that you might have documented in a user-journey map , service blueprint , or experience map then you may want to align your questions to these phases. That’s not to say you can’t depart from this order in the interview if you need to!

You should also think about preparing some warmup questions that are open-ended and easy to answer to build rapport at the beginning of your interview. For example, “Tell me a little about yourself” is a typical opening question which gets the participant talking. Any questions that require reflection should be featured later in your guide; introducing them too early could be overwhelming and you might get stereotypical responses, as participants haven’t had a chance to recall events, feelings, and form judgments.

Once you’ve ordered your questions, go through each one and prepare followup questions meant to provide you with additional detail and clarification , such as “Where were you when this happened?”, “When did that happen?”, “Tell me why you did that?”, and so on.

You can include probing questions , too, to help you to remember to ask them — for example, “Tell me more about that”, “Tell me why you felt that way”, “Why is that important to you?”

Piloting your guide will give you an idea of:

Questions you should ask but aren’t yet included in your guide
Questions that need rewording
Whether the question order works
Whether you will have time for all your questions

Recruit a pilot participant and give yourself enough time to make some changes. It’s okay to make updates to your guide throughout your interviews, but the point of piloting your guide is to fix any glaring issues before commencing research.

A guide will provide focus to your interviews and ensure that they are successful. Your interview guide should consist of broad, open-ended questions that allow participants to tell you about their experience in detail. These questions will be accompanied by many probing and followup questions, used to capture further details and gain clarification. You can download an example of an interview guide to refer to as you create your own interview guides.

Example Interview Guide (PDF)

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How to conduct effective user interviews for UX research

User interviews are a popular UX research technique, providing valuable insight into how your users think and feel. Learn about the different types of user interviews and how to conduct your own in this guide.

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user interviews in UX research blog header

User research is fundamental for good UX. It helps you get to know your users and design products that meet their needs and solve their pain-points.

One of the most popular UX research methods is user interviews. With this technique, you get to hear from your users first-hand, learning about their needs, goals, expectations, and frustrations—anything they think and feel in relation to the problem space.

But when should you conduct user interviews and how do you make sure they yield valuable results?

Follow this guide and you’ll be a user interview pro. We explain:

What are user interviews in UX research?

What are the different types of user interviews, when should you conduct user interviews, what data and insights do you get from user interviews, how to conduct effective user interviews for ux research: a step-by-step guide.

What happens next? How to analyse your user interview data

First things first: What are user interviews?

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Interviews are one of the most popular UX research methods. They provide valuable insight into how your users think, feel, and talk about a particular topic or scenario—allowing you to paint a rich and detailed picture of their needs and goals.

interviews take place on a one-to-one basis, with a UX designer or UX researcher asking the user questions and recording their answers. They can last anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour, and they can be done at various stages of a UX design project.

There are several different types of user interviews. They can be:

Structured, semi-structured, or unstructured
Generative, contextual, or continuous
Remote or in-person

Let’s explore these in more detail.

Structured vs. semi-structured vs. unstructured user interviews

Structured interviews follow a set list of questions in a set order. The questions are usually closed—i.e. there’s a limit to how participants can respond (e.g. “Yes” or “No”). Structured interviews ensure that all research participants get exactly the same questions, and are most appropriate when you already have a good understanding of the topic/area you’re researching.

Structured interviews also make it easier to compare the data gathered from each interview. However, a disadvantage is that they are rather restrictive; they don’t invite much elaboration or nuance.

Semi-structured interviews are based on an interview guide rather than a full script, providing some pre-written questions. These tend to be open-ended questions, allowing the user to answer freely. The interviewer will then ask follow-up questions to gain a deeper understanding of the user’s answers. Semi-structured interviews are great for eliciting rich user insights—but, without a set script of questions, there’s a high risk of researcher bias (for example, asking questions that unintentionally lead the participant in a certain direction).

Unstructured user interviews are completely unscripted. It’s up to the interviewer to come up with questions on the spot, based on the user’s previous answers. These are some of the trickiest types of user interviews—you’re under pressure to think fast while avoiding questions that might bias the user’s answer. Still, if done well, unstructured interviews are great if you have very little knowledge or data about the domain and want to explore it openly.

Generative vs. contextual vs. continuous user interviews

Generative user interviews are ideal for early-stage exploration and discovery. They help you to uncover what you don’t know—in other words, what insights are you missing? What user problem should you be trying to solve? Which areas and topics can you identify for further user research? Generative interviews are usually unstructured or semi-structured.

Contextual user interviews take place in a specific context—while the user is carrying out a certain task, for example. This allows you to not only observe the user’s actions/behaviour first-hand, but also to ask questions and learn more about why the user takes certain actions and how they feel in the process. Contextual interviews tend to be semi-structured.

Continuous user interviews are conducted as part of continuous UX research. While traditional user research is done within the scope of a specific project, continuous UX research is ongoing, conducted at regular interviews (e.g. weekly or monthly) with the goal of continuous product improvement. Continuous interviews are like regular check-ins with your users, giving you ongoing insight into their needs, goals, and pain-points.

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Remote vs. in-person user interviews

A final distinction to make is between remote and in-person interviews.

In-person user interviews take place with the user and researcher in the same room. A big advantage of in-person interviews is that you’re privy to the user’s body language—an additional insight into how they feel.

Remote user interviews take place via video call. Like any kind of remote work, they’re more flexible and may be more accessible for research participants as they don’t require any travel.

User interviews provide value at various stages of a design project. You can use them for:

Discovery and ideation —when you want to learn more about your target users and the problems they need you to solve.
UX testing and product improvement —when you want to get user feedback on an existing design concept or solution.
Continuous UX research —you can run regular interviews as part of a continuous UX research framework.

Let’s take a closer look.

User interviews for discovery and ideation

User interviews can be useful right at the beginning of a UX project, when you don’t know much (or anything) about the domain and don’t yet have a design direction. At this stage, everything is pretty open and your user interviews will be exploratory.

Conducting user interviews early in the process will help you to answer questions such as “Who are our target users?”, “What problems do they need us to solve?” and “What are their goals and expectations in relation to the problem space?”

Here you’ll be focusing on generative user interviews (i.e. finding out what you don’t know), and they’ll likely be unstructured or semi-structured.

User interviews as part of UX testing and product improvement

User interviews also come in handy when you have an idea or concept you want to evaluate, or even a working product you want to test.

At this stage, you might present the user with a prototype and ask them questions about it. If you’re further along in the design process, you can run user interviews as an add-on to UX testing —having the user interact with a working prototype (or the product itself) and asking them questions at the same time. These are the contextual interviews we described earlier.

Conducting user interviews at this stage will help you gain insight into how your users feel about a concept/product/experience and to identify pain-points or usability issues within the existing design.

User interviews as part of continuous UX research

User interviews are also valuable as part of a continuous UX research framework. Here, there is no project-specific goal—rather, you’re interviewing users regularly to gain ongoing user insights. This enables you to maintain a user-centric design process and to evolve your product continuously as you learn more about your users.

You can learn more about the importance of continuous UX research here .

User interviews allow you to hear from the user, in their own words, how they think and feel about a particular problem space/experience/task. This provides rich insights into their thoughts, beliefs, experiences, problems, goals, desires, motivations, and expectations, as well as the rationale or thought process behind certain actions.

As such, user interviews generate qualitative data . That is, data which tells you about a person’s thoughts, feelings, and subjective experiences. It’s the opposite of quantitative data which is objective, numerical, and measurable. You can learn more about the difference between quantitative and qualitative user research data here .

Note that user interviews generate self-reported data . Self-reported data is based on what the user chooses to share with you (you’re not observing it; rather, you’re hearing it from the user). It’s how they report to be feeling or thinking.

If you conduct contextual user interviews, you’ll gather a mixture of observational data (based on what you observe the user doing) and self-reported data.

After conducting user interviews, you’ll end up with lots of data in the form of interview transcripts, audio or video recordings, and your own notes. We’ll look at how to analyse your user interview data in the final section of this guide.

First, though, here’s a step-by-step plan you can follow to conduct effective user interviews.

Ready to conduct your own user interviews? Follow our step-by-step guide to get started.

Determine what type of user interviews you’ll conduct
Write your user interview script (or guide)
Set up the necessary tools
Recruit your interview participants
Perfect your interview technique

Let’s walk through our plan step by step.

1. Determine what type of user interviews you’ll conduct

Earlier in this guide, we outlined the different types of user interviews: Structured, semi-structured, and unstructured; generative, contextual, and continuous; and remote and in-person.

The first step is to determine what format your user interviews will take. This depends on:

What stage you’re at in the project/process
What your research goals are

If you’re at the very early stages of a design project, you’ll likely want to keep your user interviews open and exploratory—opting for unstructured or semi-structured interviews.

Perhaps you’ve already got a design underway and want to interview your users as they interact with it. In that case, structured or semi-structured contextual interviews may work best.

Consider what you want to learn from your user interviews and go from there.

2. Write your user interview script (or guide)

How you approach this step will depend on whether you’re conducting structured, semi-structured, or unstructured user interviews.

For structured interviews, you’ll need to write a full interview script—paying attention to the order of the questions. The script should also incorporate follow-up questions; you won’t have the freedom to improvise or ask additional questions outside of your script, so make sure you’re covering all possible ground.

For semi-structured interviews, you’ll write an interview guide rather than a rigid script. Come up with a set list of questions you definitely want to ask and use these—and your users’ answers—as a springboard for follow-up questions during the interview itself.

For unstructured user interviews, you can go in without a script. However, it’s useful to at least brainstorm some questions you might ask to get the interview started.

Regardless of whether you’re conducting structured, semi-structured, or unstructured interviews, it’s essential that your questions are:

Open-ended . These are questions that cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”. They require more elaboration from the user, providing you with much more insightful answers. An example of an open question could be “Can you tell me about your experience of using mobile apps to book train tickets?” versus a closed question such as “Have you ever used a mobile app to book train tickets?”
Unbiased and non-leading . You want to be very careful about how you word your questions. It’s important that you don’t unintentionally lead the user or bias their answer in any way. For example, if you ask “How often do you practise app-based meditation?”, you’re assuming that the user practises meditation at all. A better question would be “What are your thoughts on app-based meditation?”

It’s worth having someone else check your questions before you use them in a user interview. This will help you to remove any unintentionally biased or leading questions which may compromise the quality of your research data.

3. Recruit your interview participants

Your user interviews should involve people who represent your target users. This might be existing customers and/or representative users who fit the persona you would be designing for.

Some common methods for recruiting user research participants include:

Posting on social media
Working with a dedicated agency or platform which will connect you with suitable participants
Recruiting from your own customer or user database

The good thing about user interviews is that you don’t need loads of participants to gather valuable data. Focus on quality over quantity, recruiting between five and ten interviewees who closely match your target group.

4. Set up the necessary tools

Now for the practical matter of getting your user interviews underway. If you’re conducting in-person user interviews, you’ll need to choose an appropriate setting—ideally somewhere quiet and neutral where the user will feel relaxed.

For remote user interviews, you’ll need to set up the necessary software, such as Zoom , dscout , or Lookback . Consult this guide for more UX research tools .

You’ll also need to consider how you’re going to record the user’s answers. Will you use good old fashioned pen and paper, a simple note-taking app, or a recording and transcription software?

Make a list of all the tools you’ll need for a seamless user interview and get everything set up in advance.

5. Perfect your interview technique

As the interviewer, you have an important role to play in ensuring the success of your user interviews. So what makes a good interviewer? Here are some tips to help you perfect your interview technique:

Practise active listening . Show the user that you’re listening to them; maintain eye contact (try not to be too distracted with taking notes), let them speak without rushing, and don’t give any verbal or non-verbal cues that you’re judging their responses.
Get comfortable with silence . In everyday conversations, it can be tempting to fill silences. But, in an interview situation, it’s important to lean into the power of the pause. Let the user think and speak when they’re ready—this is usually when you elicit the most interesting insights.
Speak the user’s language . Communication is everything in user interviews. Don’t alienate the user by speaking “UX speak”—they may not be familiar with industry-specific terms, and this can add unnecessary friction to the experience. Keep it simple, conversational, and accessible.

Ultimately, the key is to put your users at ease and create a space where they can talk openly and honestly. Perfect your interview technique and you’ll find it much easier to build a rapport with your research participants and uncover valuable, candid insights.

What happens next? How to analyse your user interview data

You’ve conducted your user interviews. Now you’re left with lots of unstructured, unorganised qualitative data—i.e. reams of notes. So how do you turn all those interview answers into useful, actionable insights?

The most common technique for analysing qualitative data is thematic analysis . This is where you read through all the data you’ve gathered (in this case, your notes and transcripts) and use ‘codes’ to denote different patterns that emerge across the dataset.

You’ll then ‘code’ different excerpts within your interview notes and transcripts, eventually sorting the coded data into a group of overarching themes.

At this stage, you can create an affinity diagram —writing all relevant findings and data points onto Post-it notes and ‘mapping’ them into topic clusters on a board. This is a great technique for physically working through your data and creating a visualisation of your themes, allowing you to step back and spot important patterns.

With your research data organised and categorised, you can review your findings in relation to your original research objectives. What do the themes and patterns tell you? What actions can you take from your findings? What gaps still need to be filled with further UX research?

As a final step, you might write up a UX research report and present your findings to relevant stakeholders.

Learn more about UX research

We hope you now have a clear understanding of what user interviews are, why they’re such a valuable UX research method, and how to conduct your own user interviews. If you’d like to learn more about user research, continue with these guides:

A complete introduction to card sorting: What is it and how do you do it?
What are UX personas and what are they used for?
What’s the future of UX research? An interview with Mitchell Wakefield, User Researcher at NHS Digital
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The Complete Guide to Conducting UX Research Interviews

Forbes says that every dollar invested in UX yields $100. That’s an impressive 9,900% ROI . However, you can’t create a product for the user if you don’t know what they need. One of the best ways to get data that improves product design is to ask the user.

UX research interviews help researchers, product teams , and UX designers to create better user experiences. The insight you gather helps you understand the needs, wants, and pain points of your target audience.

So, how do you determine who will use your product? Which demographics should you target? How do you design questions that generate the most insight for you? These are some of the questions we’ll be answering.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

What is a UX research interview?
When and why to conduct user interviews
How to recruit participants for user interviews?
How to prepare for a user interview
How to conduct user interviews?
Framing interview questions to uncover insight
Turning interviews into research findings

What is UX research?

UX research is the study of user interaction to obtain insights that improve the design process. With UX research, you can create products and solutions that cater to a user’s needs. The primary goal of UX research is to build products for the end-user based on real data not what you think the user wants.

For example, United Airlines increased online ticketing by 200% and doubled the number of daily sessions by conducting UX research to better understand their audience.

United Airlines increased online ticketing by 200% from user research

UX researchers employ various research methods to gather data and uncover design opportunities. Most researchers start the UX research process with qualitative measures to determine the user’s needs and motivations. However, they also use quantitative methodologies to test their findings.

What Is A User Interview?

UX interview is a qualitative UX research method performed with prospective users of a product during early concept development. It’s a popular technique that allows researchers to cover related topics around the user’s motivations, feelings, and even how they use various products.

During user interviews, the UX researcher asks participants questions around behavior, use of a system, and habits to learn more about a specific topic.

Whereas multiple users are interviewed at once in focus groups, user interviews are one-on-one sessions, usually with several interviewers.

To ensure success, you must define the topic of the interview and choose the right participants for your target group.

When Should You Conduct User Interviews?

Exploration.

According to Interaction Design Foundation , organizations that invest in UX during a project’s concept phase reduce product development cycles by 33 to 50%. Also, the cost of fixing errors after development is 100x more than before development.

Conduct user interviews at the start of the project before you have a clear concept. Data from UX interviews provide a better understanding of different aspects of your user’s daily lives as it relates to the project.

User interviews can also be used when you have an early model. You learn flaws in the product and use the feedback to improve the user experience.

In this scenario, context shows how the product will be used in the user’s domain such as the office, workstation, or daily routine. The insight could form the basis for future user research such as questions to ask in larger surveys.

Observations

After launch, you can combine interviews with observing user actions to see how users interact with your product. Interviews don’t always provide sufficient insight because it’s difficult for users to explain how to use your solution in daily activities.

Contextual inquiry integrates observation and interviews. You ask participants a question and observe them perform an activity with your product. The participant also walks you through their interaction so you can ask follow-up questions after.

Why Should You Conduct User Interviews?

The User Knows Best

According to Acquia, 53% of consumers feel that brands do not meet their experience standards. Dozens of UX research methods are focused on validating ideas, concepts, and designs with a goal to answer the question; “Does this product work?”

The answer is based on a deep understanding of the human psyche, previous knowledge of the problem, and rationality.

However, interviews are more flexible and informal. The structure ensures that you’re getting answers from users to inform product design.

Also, user interviews help you to plug knowledge gaps in your product. Finding information that you weren’t necessarily looking for (good or bad) could make all the difference in a successful product launch.

Gain Deeper Insights Into Topics

If you have a problem that requires further research, user interviews help you to understand the user’s experience or opinion about a concept or product.

It’s a more intimate setting to listen to your target audience talk about an issue and gain a deeper understanding of the topic. They highlight the best features of the product and areas of improvement.

More than just words, you’re listening for clues around how they express themselves when talking about pain points, wishes, and needs.

Humanize Your Product

One of the key steps in conducting user research interviews is to create personas. Each user segment is represented by a name, face, job, and other key demographics you associate with your ideal user.

Each time you conduct an interview, you can check if personas accurately represent your target audience or if there was an important feature you left out when considering demographics.

More importantly, you connect with your audience as humans and understand how the problem affects their daily lives. The insight from such personalized interactions leads to better product integration in their lives.

How to Recruit Participants For UX Research Interviews

how to recruit for user interviews ux research

1. Decide Whom to Recruit

As a rule of thumb, you should recruit participants that represent your end-users. Characteristics could be as narrow or broad as the scope of the project. However, it’s crucial to have a diverse group and to consider accessibility, such as how disabled users would interact with your design.

To prevent bias, avoid recruiting your colleagues, family members, or close friends. They may feel obliged to say nice things about the product which defeats the purpose of the research.

Also, avoid recruiting many participants from one profession. Interaction Design describes this risk as deformation professionelle .

For example, if you’re creating a robot vacuum and you only invite women 35 and older, you risk alienating men or younger people who may have a need for the product. This demographic provides feedback based on their knowledge of similar solutions and it could lead to dysfunctional products that are unable to please. Make sure you’re capturing participants across all segments of your audience.

However, none of this would be possible if you haven’t mapped out buyer personas to guide recruitment.

2. Build Research Panels

Building a database of prospective research participants requires time investment. However, it creates a sustainable process for finding research candidates quickly. A research panel also ensures that you’re contacting people who are interested in your product.

Use the following research methodologies to help:

3. Through Customer Support

Since customer support teams have direct interactions with customers, they can help you identify participants for research projects. They regularly get feedback from customers who want to suggest future product improvements or complain about features that aren’t working for them.

4. Live Intercepts

Live intercept is an affordable way to capture users in real-time as they’re doing tasks. You can use tools like Ethnio to identify and screen website uses who may be a good fit for your research.

Neilsen Norman used this technique to recruit participants for a moderated usability study aimed at evaluating the success of their content.

Image Source: NNN Group

If users qualify, you can schedule a conversation and include other researchers to observe remotely .

5. Social Media

Social media is a great way to show your target audience that you’re invested in improving product experience as well as promoting the role of research in your company.

If you have a decent to a large following on social media platforms, ask your followers if they would like to participate in your research project.

For example, if your target audience is a group of mums with toddlers, you could search Facebook for relevant communities. Here’s a sample result

Conversely, if the product is for SaaS founders, you could find participants both on Facebook and LinkedIn communities.

Where does your target audience hang out? That’s where you want to be.

6. Search Online communities

Similar to social media, online communities like Reddit and Slack channels have ready-made participants waiting for you.

If you’re creating software to improve product design, you’d want a group of product designers for your user interview. I searched Google for “product design Slack” and this featured snippet came up.

How to Conduct User Interviews?

Before the interview

Screen participants.

At this stage, you have a list of participants, but not everyone is going to be a great fit for your project. Screening user research participants help you find candidates who represent your ideal target audience.

A few tips to help ensure screening success include:

Define the attributes you want to see in participants such as behaviors, psychographics, and demographics
Ensure you have a diverse pool of candidates
Write down your screener questions based on the attributes above
Ask qualifying questions at the beginning of the survey
Use a survey tool to build a library of screening questions
Use accessible language and avoid jargon-speak
Limit the number of open-ended questions
Keep the screener short and precise
Start broad and get narrow as you progress

Determine Incentives for Participants

Incentives are a great way to entice participants for UX research. When determining incentives, make sure it’s commensurate with the time and efforts of participants or you’ll risk a low response rate.

Ensure that people aren’t signing up just for the money or their responses might not be as insightful. An NN Group research found that 63% of incentives are monetary, 13% received a mix of monetary and non-monetary incentives and 9% didn’t receive an incentive.

However, non-monetary incentives tend to be the norm for remote interviews. An Amazon gift card or prepaid visa card ensures participants show up and are engaged during the interview process.

Set Clear Goals

It’s crucial that you have a clear purpose for each interview project.

A few questions to guide you here include:

What information do I need from our users?
How will the knowledge inform the UX design process?
What do stakeholders want to learn from the research?

Make sure stakeholder goals are realistic. Broad goals make it impossible to get feedback that is relevant to your UX design needs.

Prepare for the Interview

Allocate sufficient time for each interview and prep time between interviews. You’ll need to go through your interview guide to feel confident when starting the interview.

Write Down Your UX Research Interview Questions

Never go into a user interview without a discussion guide. This is not the place to “wing it”. A discussion guide is a document that contains a list of questions to ask research participants. It must be tied to the purpose of the research and chosen according to your learning goal.

Preparing a list of questions ensures that you will:

Include your team’s feedback in the interview process
Write clear and concise question
Cover all the questions you wanted to ask, which wouldn’t be possible on the spot

Here are Some User Interview Questions to Get the Most Insight

Discovery Questions

Tell us about yourself and your background?
How did you feel before this product?
What are the problems you want this product to solve for you?
How did you feel after you started using this product?
If this company went out of business, what alternative would you use instead?
What do you like about the product?
What do you dislike about the product?
What apps do you use regularly for the tasks?
What is the hardest part of completing the task?
Please describe your experience with… or how you use the product?
How much do you know about this topic?
How often do you use similar products?
What exactly do you use the product for?
Why do you use the product?
What could be done to make the product better for you?

Questions to Gather User Behavior

How would you describe your current or past experience with the product, app or website?
What is the most important task you need to perform with the product?
How do you navigate to the product? If it’s a website or app, do you use search engines, enter the URL directly or bookmark the site?
What do you often look for that's missing or hard to find when using this product or application?
If you had a question about this product do you know who to contact? If yes, whom would you contact?

Question About Past and Future Use

Can you recall a past situation when you faced a challenge with this problem? What did you do?
What’s your most memorable interaction with the product?
If you could picture it, what does the ideal product experience look like?
What are the most important features of the product?
How do you usually access the product? Via desktop, tablet, or mobile? (If the product is a software or website)
What would make you stop using this product?

Specific Task Questions

Could you show me how you use the product to perform the task?
Assume that I’ve never used this product before. How would you guide me so I can do it myself next time?
Walk me through your process for using the product to complete a task
Do you include other tools alongside the product?
If yes, can you show me how you integrate the tools and what functions they perform?

Follow Up Questions

Use follow-up questions to dig deeper into a topic. Most times, the participant won’t be clear enough with their answer, and follow-up questions help you to better understand their point of view.

Use the Five Whys Technique to drill down to the root of the problem by asking “why” five times. Without asking “why” you may misinterpret the motivations for the research participant.

However, it’s also important to know when to stop. You’ve uncovered the problem when the question “why” doesn’t yield any useful response and can’t go any further.

Other examples of follow up questions include:

You said… can you explain a bit more about that point?
What do you mean by…
Interesting, could you give me an example or elaborate to help me understand better?
To be clear, it sounds like you’re saying… is that correct?
What was it about the product that made you say…
Why don’t you like…

Question to Close the Interview

Would you recommend this product to someone else? If yes, why? If not, why?
Is there any question we haven’t asked that you think would be valuable to our research?
Is it okay if I reach out with more questions regarding this project?
Do you have any questions for me?

During the interview

Make your interviewee feel comfortable.

Take a deep breath and smile before you enter the interview room. According to Psychology Today , a smile is a powerful tool to improve your mood and make you feel happy. Since positivity is contagious, research participants will feel more at ease during the interview.

Also, dress casually rather than wearing a formal outfit so it doesn’t feel like a job interview. Tell them you’re here to test a product, not the participant.

With remote interviews, start with small talk to loosen them up. Introduce yourself, tell them about the research, and summarize their rights and terms of participation.

Use a Semi-Structured Interview Format to Encourage Dialogue

In a semi-structured interview, you don’t follow a formal list of questions. Rather than yes or no questions, you ask open-ended questions that allow for discussion.

A semi-structured interview encourages a two-way conversation that leads to a comprehensive understanding of the topic. Since the interviewee is at ease, they are more likely to expand on experiences and techniques that offer better insight.

Resist the Urge to Educate

Curiosity and an open mind are key ingredients to a good interview. You’re there to learn, not teach. Do not judge or correct your interviewee no matter how silly their answers seem. Your goal is to get as much information during the limited time for the interview.

Build Rapport with Participants

Building rapport encourages participants to share their thoughts and opinions. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. You’re walking into a room to speak with strangers. Subconsciously, you censor your thoughts and withhold information because you’re not sure what to say.

Rapport equals a good connection. If participants trust you, they are more forthcoming in their answers.

A few tips to help you build rapport during UX interviews include:

Be accommodating
Keep your body language open at all times
Remove barriers between you and the participant
Make eye contact
Show interest

Avoid Leading Questions that Frame the User’s Answer

Leading questions prompt the interviewee to provide a predetermined answer. The question contains information that leads to a biased answer.

Let participants tell you what they think with their words. Don’t fear the silence that takes longer than normal. Sometimes, people need a minute to gather their thoughts and provide a cohesive answer.

It’s important to have a partner with you during the interview. One person is taking notes and out of camera focus. The second person is asking questions and listening to the interviewee.

Practice asking follow-up questions to show the participant that you’re paying attention. Use smiles and head nods to engage physically.

The space between the note taker and interviewer should be clear. During remote sessions, you could turn off the camera for the note-taker so it’s easier for the interviewer and interviewee to focus on each other.

After the interview

Ask permission to use the recording.

If you’re recording the conversation, make sure participants give consent to being recorded as well as how you plan to use the recording. It’s also important that they know they can stop the recording at any point in the interview if they become uncomfortable.

Say Thank You and Wrap Up

After the interview, leave time for questions and thank the research participant for their time. This is polite and offers them a chance to ask questions. If they have any feedback on how you could better conduct interviews in the future, now’s a good time to ask.

How to Analyze User Interviews with Aurelius

After conducting the interviews with all the participants, the next step is to analyze the research . You probably have dozens of notes, videos, and audio recordings to go through. Qualitative data like this could be overwhelming if you don’t know what to do.

This is where Aurelius shines best. Here are a few ways Aurelius helps you make sense of user interview data:

Turn Spreadsheets, Videos, Audio Files and More Into Notes

Create a new project, upload your research notes , spreadsheets, video, and audio recording with the magic uploader. If you’ve got data elsewhere, use the bulk input feature to copy and paste data.

Transcribe your video/audio recording into notes automatically.

Here’s a video showing you how to get notes into Aurelius

Find Information Quickly With Tags

Make sense of your research data with our powerful project tags . Use this feature to find or describe your user interviews quickly.

A few examples of tags to use include:

Name of interviewee
Research goals
Questions asked during the interview
Name of product or topic

Look for Patterns With Keywords

Looking for patterns or words that come up repeatedly? Use the keyword feature to highlight patterns and find the most used words across all your user interviews.

Automatic keyword analysis for ux research in Aurelius

Highlight Your Major Findings With Key Insights

Use key insights to write down summaries of what you learned from each user interview. It’s a great way to share high level points of the research without asking stakeholders to read all the data.

analyzing ux research and creating key insights in Aurelius

Make Suggestions With Recommendations

Want to suggest next steps based on key insights? Use the recommendations feature to capture suggestions, action items, or outcomes. Link key insight to provide more context to your recommendations. Aurelius automatically adds your recommendations to the report.

Share Reports And Presentations with Project Stakeholders

Reporting is a breeze with Aurelius. We automatically turn recommendations and key insights from your project into reports that you can edit, design, and share with teammates and project stakeholders. You can customize your reports with documents, text, boxes, and lines.

ux research reports automatically created in Aurelius

You can also share a live link to your report, download a pdf or send it via email.

Done Right, User Interviews Help Design Teams to Build User-Friendly Products

You can't build a product for the user without gathering their input. Conduct user interviews to uncover meaningful answers that improve user experience.

Combine user interviews with other research techniques such as user surveys and usability testing to either disprove or validate your hypothesis. When you’ve gathered sufficient data, use Aurelius to sift through the information, find insight, make recommendations and create shareable reports.

Learn how Aurelius can help you organize research data and analyze information from your UX interviews

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Frequently asked questions

Common UX Research Interview Questions

Have you received an interview invitation for the role of UX researcher at your desired organization? If yes, congratulations on this accomplishment!

So, do you have a portfolio? Furthermore, are you prepared to respond effectively to the UX research interview questions ? If you're wondering how to prepare for a UX research job interview , we're here to help!

Answering interview questions goes beyond the standard queries that most interviewees are expected to know. It requires a deep understanding of the field and a mastery of research methodologies and techniques . Let's remember that demonstrating strong problem-solving and critical-thinking skills is equally important.

To stand out and make a lasting impression, it's essential to be well-prepared. Focus on articulating your unique perspective and approach to the challenges of UX research.

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(Find out why user research forms the backbone of the design process .)

We will help you understand how to prepare for a UX researcher job interview and ace all UX researcher interview questions . It covers all questions you may have to answer in a UX researcher job interview.

UX Research Background Questions

Did you know the "tell me about yourself" category of UX research interview questions are the ice-breakers?

They have their own importance in an interview. But the questions you will likely face are related to your overall background as a UX researcher.

It will not make a difference if you are starting as a UX researcher or a seasoned one. Answering these questions gives the hiring manager the exact insight to decide whether you can be a good fit for the role. Here are some UX research questions you can expect related to your background:

What motivated you to pursue a career in UX research?

How do you approach a new research project?

What is your biggest strength as a UX researcher?

How do you keep up with industry trends and advancements?

Can you describe a time when you had to handle a problematic stakeholder and how you approached the situation?

How do you handle a situation where the stakeholders have been skeptical about the project research?

What would you consider as your most significant strengths being a UX researcher?

How did you learn about UX research, and what drives you to continue pursuing this career path?

UX Research Decision-Driven Process Questions

As a UX researcher, any company will expect you to deal with complex situations. You need to be able to make sound decisions based on the data gathered during research.

The ability to make the right decision can mean the difference between a successful project and a failed one. Your skills can shine more with your critical thinking, strong problem-solving abilities, and the ability to prioritize tasks.

In this video, CEO of Experience Dynamics Frank Spillers explains how he used a diary study to research the behavior of Apple Watch users:

Understanding the users' needs and expectations will help you make informed decisions that will benefit the end user. Good decision-making skills also allow you to navigate complex projects confidently and efficiently. It helps you to anticipate potential challenges and take proactive measures to overcome them.

Here are some decision-driven UX research interview questions you can expect:

Can you explain how you prioritize research projects based on business needs?

How do you understand the user pain points and balance user needs with business goals during a research project?

Can you describe a time when you had to make a recommendation based on conflicting research insights?

How do you determine the appropriate sample size for a research project?

How do you ensure that research insights are integrated into the product roadmap?

UX Research Technical Knowledge Questions

As a UX researcher, it's essential to polish your technical knowledge. When preparing for a UX research technical interview , having a solid understanding of technical concepts is helpful. It will allow for more confident and articulate responses.

For instance, knowledge of relevant software can help you explain how you would approach designing a user interface or conducting usability tests. Additionally, understanding technical jargon and practices can assist in communicating effectively with developers and engineers.

UX Research Methods and Techniques

Follow this simple rule: "Stick to what you know best." Here's a list of technical knowledge UX research questions that you can expect in the interview:

What research methods do you typically use?

Can you walk through your process for conducting a usability test ?

How do you analyze and interpret qualitative data?

How do you ensure your research is unbiased?

Can you explain the difference between behavioral and attitudinal research?

Which tools do you use?

UX Research Adaptability Questions

Your portfolio is a valuable asset during the interview process. It serves as a visual representation of your capabilities and showcases the projects and methodologies you have used in the past. It helps the interviewer to understand how quickly you can adapt to constant changes during a project's duration.

Join Steven Gay, UX Lead for Google One, as he shares the power of a portfolio in capturing your design journey and collaboration .

In addition, it can help you to stay organized and focused during an interview. You can easily trace back to your experience when answering complex questions by presenting relevant examples from your previous work.

Sharing real-life examples demonstrating how you have applied your skills and expertise to adapt to challenging situations in specific projects is valuable. This approach makes it easier to address complex questions and showcase your qualifications effectively.

Here are some interview questions for UX researchers related to adaptability:

Can you describe a research project you are particularly proud of and why?

How did you adapt to a situation where the research insights must be aligned with stakeholder expectations?

How do you ensure that research results are actionable and impact the product design ?

Can you describe a time when you had to pivot research strategies mid-project and how you approached the situation?

How have you incorporated user feedback into the product design process?

What is your best experience with any client during the project?

Can you describe your usual process for gathering information before starting any project?

Have you worked on any project that has contributed to a breakthrough for the business?

UX Research Teamwork and Collaboration Questions

Teamwork and collaboration are essential to ensure efficient processes, to see problems from different perspectives, and to get real-time feedback. You'll work closely with other product development , design, and management team members. Here, the goal is to understand the users’ needs to develop effective solutions.

Effective collaboration requires strong communication skills. That means active listening, clear articulation, and the ability to provide constructive feedback. You must be able to conduct user interviews confidently and understand user behavior . Moreover, communicate research findings, insights, and the research plan to team members concisely and in an actionable way.

Learn how team research helps organizations move faster with Laura Klein.

Here are some questions you can expect in the interview related to teamwork and collaboration:

How do you ensure effective communication with team members during a project?

How do you handle disagreements with team members or stakeholders during a project?

Can you describe a time when you had to work with individuals from different departments or teams?

How do you ensure team members are aligned on the research goals and objectives?

Can you describe a time when you had to manage conflicting priorities on a project?

How would you resolve any miscommunication between two stakeholders associated with a project you are leading?

How would you motivate your team members if they are facing a problem?

Can you describe ways of tailoring the project based on different requirements?

UX Research Questions to Ask Your Interviewer

That time of the interview when your interviewer asks, “Any questions for me?” is your final chance to stand out. Most importantly, it's your opportunity to figure out whether the position suits your personality, interests, and qualifications.

Here are some questions to catch your interviewer off-guard (in a good way).

What is the usual approach for your company for a user-centered design, and how does UX research fit into that process?

What software or tools does your organization use for research, design, collaboration, prototyping , etc.?

How does the company ensure that UX research insights are being effectively implemented?

What are the qualities and attributes that can make for a successful UX researcher in the company?

The ice-breaker UX research interview questions still hold their importance. They are basic in nature but helpful in creating that first impression on your interviewer. If you have your technical expertise in place, give equal importance to soft skills as well.

Key Steps to Prepare for a UX Research Job Interview

Moreover, it's good practice to ask your interviewer questions. Try to keep a few questions ready on your end. They can be about the organization, the role, or anything important to you before you decide to join the organization.

Lastly, it's equally important to highlight your ability to collaborate effectively with team members and stakeholders. But if you need a little extra boost to complete your journey as a UX researcher confidently, take courses offered by the IxDF.

The Interaction Design Foundation offers a range of UX courses that will take your career to the next level. Enroll in one of our UX courses today and unleash your UX superpowers!

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My Expert Guide to User Interviews

Techniques & Tips with my Interview Cards

User interviews are an important method in our UX researcher toolbox. They help us gain insight about our users and their needs. Well written and well conducted interviews are the key for gathering useful and helpful qualitative data. To help us with that, I created a set user interview and follow-up questions cards and a digital user interview guide workshop board (Miro and Figma). Those tools make writing better interview guides easier. They also help experts plan and conduct user interviews more effectively.

What are user interviews
How to plan and conduct user interviews sessions
Focus on the content of an interview guide
Tips to write good and effective interview questions

Using my User Interview Cards to plan and conduct interviews more effectively

Facilitating user interview sessions like experts
Tips on how to analyze the data .

What are User Interviews

User Interview is a method to collect information, via direct conversation with users. Interviews can be face to face or remote.

It is one of the main user research methods in our researcher toolbox. It helps us understand user needs, but also motivations, opinions, frustrations, pain points. Unlike surveys, user interviews are live. It is an interactive conversation.

Types of user interviews

There are different types of user interviews:

Structured : the researcher prepared a guide they strictly follow.
Semi structured : the researcher prepared a guide as pointers, but the rest is follow up, to have a more natural conversation.
Contextual interviews: the researcher observes and interviews the participant in their environment. This brings context and gives more insight on the user’s environment. The research asks questions but also asks the participant to perform tasks.

A screen with teams open, a user and a note taker, a second screen shared by participant, and some paper notes

Example of a remote contextual interview, where we asked participants questions about their tasks and activities, and asked them to share their screen so that we could observe them while performing those

When and why do you do user interviews

Most people think user interviews are done at the beginning of a project. It’s true, but not the only time those can help. There are different reasons to do user interviews at different points in a project:

Discovery phase: at the beginning of a project, to understand user, their goals, tasks, activites, painpoints and needs
Before you start the design: to inform about user journeys, flows, inform future design decisions (that need to be tested later)
During usability testing : you ask participants to perform tasks. But you can also add a few interview questions, especially follow-up ones in there
After the product is on market : observation and interview to understand usage of the product or feature you launched. And then you can keep on improving it.

How to plan and conduct user interviews

Setup of user interviews.

3 people in a triangle setup: one is behind a computer and is the interviewer, another one answers she is the participant, the third is taking notes in the corner, she is the note taker

The ideal user interview involves two UX researchers / designers and one user:

1 interviewer who will conduct the interview, ask questions and follow-ups
1 note taker who will take notes and usually not participate in asking the questions
1 participant in the target audience

You can also have some observers. But, make sure they understand they should NOT say anything. If you can, record the interview and show them recording instead.

Prepare & plan

Preparing user interviews entails recruiting participants from your target audience. Here are the main steps:

Set the goals of your research (aka prepare a research plan)
Prepare your interview guide . The interview guide is a structured document with the list of questions you are going to ask. This is the part where my cards will help you. An interview guide is also super useful to note takers, because it gives them a structure for their notes. (more tips on questions in next session)
Test the guide with colleagues. This part is very important to avoid biases in research
Schedule the research (dates in the calendar, etc.)

If you want to lear more about biases and mitigate them when creating user interviews check my “ UX Cognitive Bias Cards & Workshop “. It’s a fun way to raise awareness of biases when designing products & services

Recruit participants

I won’t go into full details of recruiting, this deserves an article on its own. But here is the tool long, didn’t read version of what you need to not forget when recruiting participants:

Explain the goal (without giving too much info sometimes to not bias)
Explain compensation
Don’t forget to have a screener (a list of questions to know if they are in your target audience or not)
AVOID group sessions at all costs. Focus groups are worthless, you end up with the loudest person’s opinion and a bunch of group biases
Schedule session with the participant
Send reminders a few days before the session

Structure of the interview guide

Example of an interview guide in word

An interview guide will help you structure your interviews. Remember: it’s a guide. If you feel the need, it’s okay to go beyond this guide to dig into specific topics that come up with participants. Nevertheless, you still need a solid structure. Mine usually have the following parts

I remind participants about the context of the interview
I thank them again
I make it clear that there is no right or wrong answers
I ask permission for recording
I remind them that we can take a break or stop anytime
Warm up / general questions : Often questions about who the participant is, what is their relationship with the research/products. Those are here to put the participant at ease and help them get used to talking to an interviewer. Also: can be used for rescreening.
Main questions : they will depend on your research topic. This is the core of your interview and I’ll detail how to write good interview questions in the next section.
Wrap up and end of the interview : I usually ask participants if they have things to add. And if they have questions for me. I also explain how to get the compensation and thank them. Sometimes, I might ask if they can refer other participants to me.

If you need help, you can get my user interview guide template.

Get User Interview Guide Template

How to write good and effective interview questions

A cheatsheet of user interview questions (in yellow) and follow-ups (in purple)

If you need help with the questions, I put together a cheat sheet of interviews and follow up questions . Those are fragments of questions that should help you get started writing your own questions. I organized them in different categories depending on what type of question I want to ask.

Do this when preparing user interview questions

Let’s start with the tips on what you should do, when writing and preparing interview questions.

Start with warm up questions . Often questions about who the participant is, what is their relationship with the research/products. The goal is to put people at ease, warm them up.
Start with broader themes then break those down into answerable questions
Try to focus on past behaviour rather than predict the future
Anticipate answers and prepare follow ups based on the goal of the research
Ask Why , 5 times
It’s okay to have more questions than needed
It’s a guide : it’s okay to explore outside it participants are say interesting things

Avoid those questions when preparing user interviews

For example “how satisfied are you with our support team”, it assumes the person was satisfied, what if she was not?
Better “how was your experience with our support team?”
For example “was the product easy to use and affordable”.
Better: split the questions in 2 different ones.
For example: “Would you prefer to subscribe to a car insurance online or via one of our agents?” This question assumes the person owns a car and needs car insurance. What about people who don’t?
Fix: make sure you checked that assumption before in the interview, if it’s not true, pass the question?
For example: “how do feel about our product” could lead to an interesting discussion, or a very short close answer
Fix: prepare less vague questions on top of that and / or some follow up question ideas if the person isn’t super chatty about that topic
Sometimes, you will use yes/no questions as screeners for extra interview questions that only apply to a specific set of users.
If you don’t find a more open question, and go for yes/no, try to anticipate follow-up questions for those: if the person says yes, then we ask this follow up, if they say no, then we ask that follow up
Avoid asking people what they want / asking them for solutions . Rather try to understand what they are trying to do, to accomplish, their tasks and activities. And then, you can find a way to improve that.
Be careful about bringing your own biases to the research. Check 52 UX Cards to Discover Cognitive Biases for more on the topic.

43 User Interview and Follow-up question cards

A PDF with user interview questions, some purple and yellow user interview question and follow-up cards and some cards examples in figma

It’s not always easy to come up with effective user interview questions. I was always checking the same books and articles whenever I wanted to build my own guides. So, I came up with a cheat sheet for user interviews and follow-up questions . This was great, but it’s also a long list. To make this more digestible, I turned it into a set of 43 User Interview Questions . They include questions for the interview and follow-up questions. Those are fragments of questions that will help you get started writing your own questions.

I have mostly 3 ways of using my cards in paper and digital format. If you get them and find other ways, please share by email or on social media!

A pocket sized mini library, of ready to use starter questions

Multiple cards on a table with sticky notes on top of them to write the full question

I use the cheatsheet and cards as starting points, to build my own interview guide questions . Both interview and follow-up cards are organized in different categories. I can pick and choose question fragments from those categories. Then, I complete the question based on my research needs. It’s like a mini library of ready to use questions, so it helps me save a lot of time.

You can also use the cards as a small reminder on your desk before or during the interviews. They can help you remember things you might forget, especially the follow-up questions.

I created a printable version of those cards, with 2 different printing ways: side by side (if your printer plays nice) or fold-able (if your printer doesn’t align properly the side by side).

Get the 43 Printable Interview Cards

A pop-up workshop, to write user interview guides more easily

miro and figma board with some digital cards to build interview guides

When working with teams to build user interview guides, I find it’s easier to not jump straight into MS word. I prefer to first brainstorm questions in a more visual format . My cards are really helpful for this. It can be a “physical” or a digital brainstorming session. In both cases, here is how I do it:

Warm up questions
Main interview questions
Wrap up questions
I prepare the cards and arrange them by theme (interview vs follow-up) and question categories. On the table, or on the board.
I ask people (colleagues, students) to brainstorm questions for all 3 parts, based on our research goals and objectives. The cards act as “starters”.
Usually, they pick a card, then complete the full question on a sticky note.
People can either brainstorm questions on their own, and then we put them together. Or, it can be a group session from the start where everyone adds their questions along the way. This is really up to you, you know your team dynamics better than I do.
Once you all agree on the questions that will make it to the guide, we can create a “clean” MS word version of it. (if you need help with guides, check my user interview guide template)

If you want to save time, I have already prepared some Miro and Figjam boards. You can import them into your accounts (you need a paying Miro account though) and work with your teams on those.

Get the Miro / Figjam workshop boards

I also try have my research guide proof read by someone (a researcher or designer) who didn’t participate in the question writting session. This help mitigate different researcher biases we might have brought in the guide.

You usually build your user interview guide questions with other researchers and designers . Those are the people you want to invite in the brainstorming session. I advise you to not invite your stakeholders, or untrained people with zero UX research background. Because, you will end up with biased and poorly written questions . And you want to avoid them bringing their own biases into the research. Also, I have years of experience with shitty questions written by untrained people. Trust me, it will just bring unhelpful data as results.

A study guide, to teach how to write better interview questions

The last way I use those cards is as a teaching tool . I teach how to build better products to design students and professionals in the UX industry.

When I was in school, I used to make small cards with the most important information from my lessons. My friends would borrow them because they liked how short and clear they were. They could keep them in their pockets and study them between classes. If you are a junior or a student, you can use my user interview cards the same way. Those cards are a very nice little study guide to help you get better and more effective at writing your own questions.

The digital board workshop can also be used as a teaching tool for juniors, mentees and students.

Facilitating user interview sessions like experts

Wow, you made it here. You are ready, to actually, facilitate the interview! Congrats! If there is one thing you need to remember: a user interview is a conversation! It’s NOT a survey. It’s all about active listening on the

Here are a few tips to help conduct good user interview sessions:

Start with the introduction , explain there is no right or wrong answer
After the introduction, have some warm up questions, like background or previous experience. Those are here to help the participant get comfortable with the process.
Try to put people at ease. Don’t judge , but also don’t fake empathy: be friendly but professional
Don’t be shy to ask for clarification . Or to play coy: ask about things that might seem obvious. Sometimes the answers can be surprising.
Answer questions with questions : if a user asks for something try to return the question.
Try to pick up non verbal cues . It’s harder remotely though, you have to check the webcam, tone and voice of the person
Get comfortable with silence : don’t rush, pause, let people time to think and answer. . If you struggle with this, my fun advice: count in your head, the same way you count when lightening strikes: 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippis… up to 5 Mississippis. Eventually, you will get comfortable with silence.
If possible, have a note taker , so that you can be present and actively listen to the participant.
If you can’t get a note taker, ask if you can record the session . Take minimal notes that help you follow-up, but don’t write a full transcript while interviewing. Be present.
Make notes of the questions that didn’t work (for future interviews, don’t change that one)

Report and analysis of user interview data

After the interview, I like to make a short note about the most important things I learned while it is still fresh in my mind. Here are some tips to help with reporting and analysis:

Transcribe the notes (you can use automated tools if you recorded)
Organize interview content on sticky notes
Search for patterns and themes
Review, refine
You can also build user journeys out of the data, and other UX deliverables that will help you improve your product or service.

Example of an analysis of a user interview sessions: a Miro board with an affinity map of the interview main findings clustered by category and a user journey map that mixes some task analysis content

I won’t enter into the details of data analysis, but here are some resources to help you:

4 methods for analysing user interviews – Rick Dzekman
A Strategic Storytelling Tutorial – Modernist Studio
Qualitative Coding for UX Research Analysis
Techniques to Identify Themes in Qualitative Data
How to Analyze Qualitative Data from UX Research: Thematic Analysis
Analysing Qualitative User Data – Fr Maria Panagiotidi

User Interviews sound like an “easy and fast” method to a lot of people. Because, it’s sold as “just go grab a few people and ask them a couple of questions” by many articles these days. But, if you want quality quantitative data at the end, to improve your product, you need quality interviews . Having a good research process helps a lot here. And you need unbiased questions. And, if you need help, I have a lot of User Interview Resources available .

The cards I created helped me save a lot of time when building interview guides. They help be more efficient, but also, more consistent. Finally, they encourage me to write better, more unbiased questions. And I think they can help you, and any UX professionals out there.

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32 common UX job interview questions with example answers

Last updated

11 January 2024

Reviewed by

Miroslav Damyanov

Whether it's your first UX research job or the next step in a long career, the interview process is often nerve-wracking and stressful.

Many candidates spend a lot of time worrying about how the interview process will go. What kinds of questions will the interviewer ask? What are the best ways to answer them?

As with most things, the best answers depend on your circumstances. Different phases of the interview process ask different types of questions.

In this guide, we aim to provide an overview of the types of questions you may encounter in each phase of the process.

Keep reading for concrete tips on approaching these questions so you can feel confident and prepared.

7 background and experience questions

The interviewer will ask these questions to get to know you better and glean a little about your experience:

What did you study in college, and how has it prepared you for a career in UX research?

How do you define a successful user research project?

How have you collaborated with design, product, and engineering teams?

How has your approach to UX research evolved since you began your career?

Describe a particularly impactful research project you've led and what you learned from it.

Describe a project that didn’t implement your findings and how you handled it.

Some of these questions might not apply to entry-level positions.

Tips for answering UXR background questions

Be specific.

Interviewers aren't looking for generic answers. Answer questions by detailing specific projects and experiences. Detail how the experience relates to their question.

Highlight impact

Companies want to hire someone who will make an impact on their products. Discuss tangible ways your research has increased user engagement or retention. When possible, give precise metrics.

Showcase collaboration

Being a team player is vital in any position in a company, but that's especially true for UXR. Discuss how you collaborated with designers, product managers, and other stakeholders to inform decisions.

Discuss methodologies

Part of gauging your experience is examining how well-rounded you are. Discuss different research methods you’ve worked with to highlight your versatility.

Interviewers are great lie detectors. If you haven't used a particular method or tool, don’t lie about it. Missing some experience is less of a dealbreaker than lying.

Highlight soft skills

Many companies find that employees often lack the soft skills for effective teamwork and collaboration. Be sure to highlight how your soft skills have driven results with examples.

Show continuous learning

The field of UXR is constantly evolving. Unless you've recently graduated college, you should have been evolving with it. Be sure to mention any classes, workshops, or other training that you've had to keep your skills sharp.

Don't fear failure

Sometimes, projects don't go as planned. It can be tempting to avoid discussing these, but interviewers aren't expecting perfection. Instead of avoiding projects that didn't go well, use them as an opportunity to highlight how you learned and grew from them.

Prepare a portfolio

A portfolio of your work showcasing the projects you're most proud of can serve as a visual aid. It’s an easy-to-access place for key metrics and projects, making answering questions easier.

Practice active listening

This is one of the soft skills mentioned earlier. Listen carefully to the question to ensure your answer is relevant. If a question is unclear, don't be afraid to ask the interviewer to clarify.

Take your time

Interviews can be stressful, and stress often results in impulsive answers. Keep the stress under control by taking your time to think about the question to provide a better answer.

8 decision-making assessment questions

A UX researcher is responsible for making or influencing many decisions that will impact a project's success. The interviewer will ask questions that assess how good you are at making these decisions.

Some examples include:

How do you decide which research method to use for a particular project?

How do you prioritize research requests from different teams or stakeholders?

How do you decide what to research with limited time or resources?

How would you handle situations where user needs conflict with business goals?

How do you handle situations where quantitative data contradicts qualitative findings?

How do you determine if a finding is significant enough to recommend design changes?

Describe a time when your research directly impacted a product decision.

How do you ensure your recommendations align with short- and long-term strategy?

Tips for answering decision-driven research questions

Think aloud.

Take time to gather your thoughts before speaking. Once you do, walk the interviewer through your thought process. This will show off your analytical and decision-making skills better than simply answering questions.

Reference past experiences

The interviewer wants to know how you'll put your decision-making skills into practice. The best way to do this is to highlight real-world examples of your skills.

Emphasize user-centricity

The user experience is obviously one of the most important parts of user experience research. Highlight how the user's needs and experiences are central to your decision-making.

Consider business objectives

While user needs should always be at the forefront of UXR, decisions must also align with business goals. Let the interviewer know how you balance these two goals.

Data-informed decisions

Data has always driven research of any kind. In the era of big data, that's never been more true. Discuss how you leverage quantitative and qualitative data to inform your decisions.

Discuss collaboration

UX research is a collaborative field. Often, you won't be the only one involved in the decision-making process. Discuss how you've collaborated with various other business units to come to the best decision for all stakeholders.

Acknowledge trade-offs

Decisions often involve trade-offs between two competing interests. Interviewers are going to ask questions about how you'd handle these situations. Be prepared to answer them.

Stay calm and logical

Your interviewer will likely ask complex questions that require deep thought. Don't rush to an answer. Take a moment to process the question to answer it logically.

Ask clarifying questions

Given the complex nature of some of the questions you'll need to answer, you might not fully understand them the first time. Asking clarifying questions shows thoughtfulness and ensures you don't give a silly answer.

9 technical questions

Your technical capabilities aren't the be-all and end-all of the interview, but they are its meat and potatoes. These questions will determine whether you have the knowledge to perform the job effectively.

Some questions you may hear are:

Which UX research tools are you most familiar with?

How do you ensure the validity and reliability of your research data?

How do you handle recruiting participants for research studies?

How do you typically analyze and prioritize user feedback from disparate sources?

How do you structure and present your findings to ensure they're actionable for others?

How do you employ user journey mapping to identify UX pain points and opportunities?

What strategies do you employ to ensure unbiased results during user testing sessions?

What metrics do you track in usability studies, and how do they inform your conclusions?

Describe when you used a specific statistical analysis method to interpret research data.

Tips for answering process and technical knowledge questions

The interviewer will be asking you many particular questions. They are looking for equally specific answers. Avoid generalities and answer the question as directly as possible.

Use real-world examples

Back up your answers with examples from your work. Discuss specific projects, challenges, and how you applied your technical knowledge to address them.

Explain your process

As your math teachers wanted you to show your work, interviewers are interested in how you arrive at your conclusions. Explain the thought process behind your answers.

Highlight continuous learning

Answers to technical questions are an excellent opportunity to show the interviewer that you have an interest and background in continuing your education.

Showcase problem-solving skills

Many questions will revolve around the challenges you face. Answering these in detail is a great way to show off the problem-solving skills you've developed in the field.

Speak the language

Remember, you aren't talking to a layperson who doesn't understand jargon. You're trying to impress someone who does. Use the appropriate technical terms to show off your knowledge of the subject.

Prepare in advance

If you think the interview will contain technical questions, give yourself time to quickly review the material. This will ensure you don't get caught off guard by a question you haven't considered.

Be enthusiastic

Interviewers want someone who is excited about the field. When answering technical questions, show your enthusiasm for the work. This will show the interviewer that your passion for the field aligns with company culture and expectations.

Ask reflective questions

Another way to demonstrate your passion for the field is to ask the interviewer related questions after you answer. Don't go overboard and give the impression that you're the one conducting the interview, but show you love to discuss the topic.

8 adaptability questions

Interviewers will likely want to know how you handle things not going as planned or when conditions change rapidly in the middle of a project.

Some of the questions they may ask to determine this include:

How would you handle stakeholders who disagree with your research findings?

How do you adapt your research focus to match product lifecycle stages?

How do you handle feedback or criticism about your research approach or findings?

How do you adapt your research objectives to sudden changes in business goals?

How do you approach research with emerging technologies or unfamiliar platforms?

Describe a time when you had limited resources for research and how you made it work.

Describe a time you changed your research methods due to unforeseen circumstances.

Describe a time you faced significant challenges in a research project and how you overcame them.

Tips for answering adaptability questions

Highlight problem-solving skills.

At its core, adaptability is about problem-solving. As you answer the interviewer's questions, discuss the strategies you use to keep your thinking critical and focus on the task at hand.

Show flexibility

Whether it's due to new data, stakeholder feedback, or changing project goals, UXR work requires flexibility. Giving examples of how you've handled these situations in the past will give interviewers a better idea of how easily you adapt to new directions.

Emphasize collaboration

Adaptability in UX research involves changing needs across various teams. Showcase how you've integrated the needs of other stakeholders and teams into your process as goals change.

Communicate proactively

In scenarios where you've had to adapt, emphasize how you effectively communicated changes or new directions to stakeholders.

Show resilience

Few people enjoy sudden changes, but a good researcher will not be dismayed. As you answer your questions, emphasize your resilience rather than your annoyance at the changes.

Demonstrate empathy

Several questions may include conflicts with other team members or stakeholders. Always demonstrate that you value their input and consider it, even if you go in another direction.

While it's essential to provide detailed examples, ensure your answers are concise and to the point. Avoid over-explaining.

Frameworks for crafting effective interview answers

An effective and engaging interview answer tells a story. Like any story, it needs structure.

Several frameworks can ensure your interview answers are well-structured. Let’s go over a few so you can find one that best fits your personality and matches specific types of questions.

The STAR method provides a straightforward structure to answer questions. It provides context to the situation and how you resolved it.

It's a good method to use when interviewers seek specific examples of past behavior to gauge your future performance.

Situation : Explain the circumstances of the situation you’re discussing

Task : Explain the challenge or responsibility that arose as a result

Action : Describe the specific actions you took to address the task or challenge

Result : Detail the result of your actions, focusing on positive impacts and lessons learned

This method is a simplified version of STAR. CAR is good for quick-paced interviews or discussing experiences with clear and direct outcomes.

It's easy to remember as a general structure when nerves make it hard to think clearly.

Context : Describe the situation you'll be talking about

Action : Explain the actions you took to resolve it

Result : Discuss the outcomes of those actions

METEOR goes more in-depth and incorporates metrics and broader outcomes, providing a tangible scale to the situation you’re discussing.

This framework is good for quantifying the impact of your actions or answering questions about scenarios with broad-reaching implications.

Metric: Start with numbers or data to give context or scale

Example: Provide a specific scenario or situation

Task: Describe your responsibility or challenge in that scenario

Effect: Talk about the immediate impacts of your actions

Outcome: Expand to broader implications or longer-term effects

Result: Sum up the result of the experience and what you learned from it

Final thoughts

There's a lot to absorb in this lengthy list of potential UX research interview questions, tips, and frameworks. If you try to memorize all of it, you'll likely stress yourself out even more.

Instead, read over it a few times in the lead-up to your interview and give it a quick review on the day itself. Focus on the tips you hadn't thought of before or stick out in your mind.

Pick one or two frameworks that might apply to your interview. Practice telling the story of some of your past projects under those frameworks.

This approach will familiarize you with the frameworks and how to adapt them on the fly. It’ll also give you a set of stories to draw from during the interview. Good luck!

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Latest articles

User Interviews: Guide To An Insightful UX Interview

Mária Ilona Horváth

How to do a good user interview? Do you REALLY know your users' pain points or are you just seeing the top of the iceberg? Let's face it: all products and research processes have new challenges. We, at our UX company , give you our process and essentials to good user interviews.

In this post we cover:

Planning an interview
Conducting the interview
Interview analysis
+ 7 Essentials to a good user interview

What are user interviews and when to use them?

A user interview differs from an everyday conversation.

Mainly in its aim and the roles each person plays. An interview has a well-defined and previously agreed upon topic or question the interviewer wants to understand, explore or better specify by talking to people and listening to them.

Accordingly, the UX researcher talks with people who in some way belong to the target group connected to their topic, researched product, service or broader problem during a UX interview.

When deciding on the method of interviewing, you don’t only need a clearly defined topic and a good idea for your target group. You also want a convincing reason for choosing this technique, perhaps real curiosity, a lack of data from other sources or the impossibility of using other methods .

A good interview results from deep and well-researched interest and openness. To simply validate existing beliefs, concepts or already collected – perhaps quantitative – data, consider other options. You can share surveys or do desktop research instead of taking the time to conduct interviews. Find our summary on different UX research methods here.

Do user interviews when you need exploration

Do user interviews if your question or problem needs further exploration or you need insight into how others relate to your topic. Also, if you want the option to ask back and react to what your respondents have to share.

Interviewing works great in the early phase of developing a concept or product. Also, it can really provide insight when researching existing solutions by asking people’s opinions on and experience with it.

User interviews provide an understanding of how your target audience talks about an issue in a more intimate setting. What do they mention as their main problems, needs, wishes and joys regarding a process, service or solution? Also, it can reveal how they express themselves when talking about such factors.

When preparing products and thinking about users, you can also create personas. To learn more, read our post on personas here

User interviews collect what people say about a topic and how they say it during the interview session. Do not confuse that with how they think or feel about the question in general. It takes time and practice to differentiate these realms easily.

Planning can start once interviews have clearly proven themselves the best method for researching a topic.

User interviews: planning and preparation

1. consider the time and the resources.

No golden rule says how to plan these elements, as the difficulty of the topic and that of recruitment can influence this.

Once you have everybody on the same page about interviewing, start developing a research plan and specifying the main questions to answer in connection with the topic.

Calculate sufficient time for interviews, especially if you work in a bigger or remote team. Poorly prepared questions or dissimilar interviews can ruin your efforts.

2. Choose a structure: semi-structured or unstructured

Once you have an idea about the most important questions, choose a structure. We won’t discuss structured interviews here as they resemble surveys more than explorative interviews based on the approach introduced this far. So go for semi-structured or unstructured interviews.

We recommend semi-structured user interviews, as leading and analyzing unstructured ones really take a lot of time and practice. Also, if you want to share the workload within a team, semi-structured interviews and such guides leave less room for misunderstanding.

Wonderful, but what is a semi-structured interview? A semi-structured interview operates with a set of questions and a proposed order for them as defined in the user interview guide.

The interviewer has to prepare and have the willingness to change these questions and add new ones if the interview situation requires. The interview guide serves as an invaluable asset in finding the golden path between an overly strict structure and an overly vague organization for the interview.

A semi-structured interview guide leaves room to improvise and helps with tips on how to handle unexpected situations or directions of the talk. Remember what we’ve said about the nature and worth of interviews: You would not have expected some of the most important and interesting findings.

User interview structure planning in progress

Writing a UX research plan and interview guide also proves helpful in collecting and evaluating assumptions and any possible bias. Pay attention to them, as unreflected-upon assumptions and researchers’ bias can interfere a lot with results.

You can write a UX interview guide and recruit participants simultaneously. However, we write interview guides before talking to participants, not simply because of the problematics of bias but also in order to take the right approach to this easily. Instead of writing a guide to the first respondents, we want to find respondents to our questions and guide.

3. User recruitment: You can do it!

Recruitment might be difficult. Luckily, tips and ideas abound on how to find respondents for your interviews. Here, we will only stress (relieved by CBD isolate powder )one very important detail that can separate a really insightful interview from average ones.

Let’s say you have already tried all the databases you might have. Keep GDPR in mind, though! You posted calls on social media, wrote ads, offered incentives and subscribed to platforms, asked friends and family and still have difficulty finding (enough) respondents.

Again, some extremely difficult topics can make recruitment tough. We’ve gone through that. Still, at this stage, you might want to go back quickly and check your UX research plan, topics and an interview guide. Even if you can’t make systematic changes at this point, sooner make small adjustments to the plan than compromise requirements by recruiting somebody who does not really fit but seems “almost OK”.

4. Schedule your user interviews

If you’ve successfully found your respondents, keep in mind that success does not only depend on the actual interview. The way you first contact interviewees will affect them. Your tone and style will impact their relaxation levels once you actually start talking about your questions.

Depending on the organization of a user experience research project, different people may contact and schedule the interviews from those conducting them. In such a case, make sure within the team that the respondents join the interview well informed.

Also, when asking them to participate, you will inevitably tell them something about the topic and the goals of the interview. For one, it stands as an ethical requirement.

Always state the aims of the project and summarize participants’ rights so they can give informed consent to participate. It makes it easier for you, too. If respondents have an idea of what will happen during the interview, it reduces the risk of scheduling an unsuccessful or cancelled interview.

Still, the possibility remains for cancelled or less insightful interviews. Therefore, we at UX Studio always calculate with more interviews than absolutely necessary for our UX research goal.

5. Remote user interviews?

Some situations prevent personal interviews, otherwise the ideal choice of user research method. Life just doesn’t work that way. When conducting remote (e.g. phone) interviews, keep in mind that some factors and response effects might have a stronger influence on respondent answers in such a setting.

For example, people tend to finish remote interviews sooner than in person. People on the phone agree easier and answer in shorter sentences. They lose patience. Also, you can’t observe non-verbal reactions and body language in as much detail as when in the same room. It makes sense to adjust your interview guide and planning accordingly, like to formulate questions very clearly.

Conducting the user interview

1. before the user interview, prepare.

Calculate sufficient time for the interview. You will have to concentrate, as it makes for a tiring process. Also, spend time preparing before every single interview even if you’ve already conducted interviews focusing on the same topic.

Why? Because you need some time before the actual interview to go through your interview guide to get calm and confident enough when starting the interview. Also, check the respondent data quickly so you can make minor changes in the guide to make it more relevant. This way, you can greet your respondents naturally and kindly, which proves not just nice but it boots up your interview process!

2. Make interviewees feel comfortable

When the users arrive – and after offering a coffee or glass of water – we at UX Studio usually guide them to the interview room while making a few warm-up remarks or asking some casual questions. Meeting the respondents at their location of choice really makes them more comfortable!

Here, you can also see why remote interviews can get more complicated. You lose all these options to create a relaxing atmosphere.

Once you have everything set and your respondent has relaxed enough, quickly introduce the research you’re working on, thank them for the interview, and summarize participants’ rights and the terms of participation. After this point, signing an informed consent form (and if necessary, a confidentiality disclosure) and discussing the details of a possible recording follows.

3. Do the interview like a smooth conversation

Start the interview with a warm-up session. Discussing rights, signing forms and switching on a voice or video recorder interfere with your interviewee’s state of mind. Find our tips on recording a UX interview here.

Depending on the difficulty and sensitivity of the topic and the scheduled length of the interview, this warm-up phase can go shorter or longer. But we’ve found that it usually takes five to seven minutes.

Try to make the transition from this part to your central topic smooth. Again, consider the interview guide your friend and build a logical bridge between your warm-up questions and your main topic.

This is key to conducting insightful user interviews. Not only the questions follow in a meaningful order but the interviewer’s tone of voice, body language and gestures signal interest in all the answers, not only in those marked as important in the interview guide.

This way, the respondent can participate in a normal conversation where they do not feel tested on or experimented with. Aim to really understand users. Let them talk, not just answer.

Don’t just focus on open-ended research interview questions about their central problems, frustrations and pain points regarding the topic. It involves more than simply embracing silence, trusting your respondents and efforts thus far. You recruited these people because they have something interesting to tell you; give them time and room to do so.

4. Listen and ask clever questions

If they start telling you something that seems irrelevant at first, bear with them a bit. The detour they make might lead you to the diamond you are mining for with interviewing. We can’t stress enough: Discovery interviews explore stuff you would have not thought of otherwise.

Don’t misunderstand, take the lead during the interview and keep track of time but remain flexible and truly curious about what the respondents have to share.

Especially so, as some interviews prove to be tricky. Don’t worry, we’ve met less talkative respondents, too. You can always use little tricks to make them more engaged in the conversation. You can find out more by guiding the respondents to share more. How? If you feel that your respondent did not tell you everything you needed to know, use probing or summarizing questions.

If you simply repeat what they just said, people tend to add more details to it. Also, you can check if you really understand the point they are making. Silence is a great tool, too. If you are patient enough and don’t rush to ask another question to fill the silence, people usually make an extra effort to answer your initial question. Additionally, you can always point out nicely that they are experts and you need more details or further explanation of the topic.

When you have asked all your UX research questions and got all the answers you needed, move on to the last part of the interview.

Closing the conversation in a skilled way is not simply polite but can add valuable insight to your results, too. For that reason, we always ask respondents about the interview experience. It helps them (and us!) come out of interview mode and improves the user experience research process.

Also, ask them if they have any thoughts connected to the topic which you hadn’t raised. You may collect ideas to develop for the next interview. Lastly, express gratitude!

5. After the interview: not quite finished

Your respondent’s interview process has finished there, but another difficult part begins for you now. First, right after saying goodbye to your interviewee, write down your notes, remarks and impressions. What makes it so important and beneficial to sit down and collect your reflections? Because the experience is fresh, you remember things you might not when listening to your recording.

User interviews with dogs are more relaxing

Also, it adds to your notes taken during the session. When you take notes while listening to your respondent and thinking about your next user research question, you have to concentrate on the here and now. Collecting the ideas, reflections and analytical problems that occurred to you during the user interview should go into your after-session notes.

These notes also open the door to the analytical process following the interview. Even though we believe analysis starts when you start thinking about the UX interview questions to ask, your collected data requires another form of systematic analysis.

Analysis of the user interview

Just like with the topic of recruitment, we will mostly focus on sharing some tips. Still, you can find lots of material available online and off on analyzing interviews. A well-prepared and conducted semi-structured interview will offer many insights and possible directions of analysis. Just choose one (or a few) to pursue.

Embrace the specifics of qualitative data and do not try to understand it with a quantitative mindset. It doesn’t only involve numbers, figures or even facts. Among other things, it deals with experience, memory, expression, expectation and wishes.

However, working with qualitative data requires a systematic approach. We would also add that analyzing and sharing qualitative data convincingly takes a certain kind of discipline.

As the analysis and the resulting suggestions build on interpretations of what you heard during the interviews, have confidence in your findings. Do not only share some quotes but detail your reasoning on why you understand this or that quote this or that way. As we see it, the interview process really ends here for the interviewer.

Summary: 7 essentials to insightful user interviews

1. Plan: go deep, do a research plan and an interview guide, take into account the time and the resources as well

2. Provide a calm atmosphere for the interview: even offering tea and coffee can do the trick. A relaxed user is an open user

3. Prepare and be confident as a researcher: know the interview guide, but know the subject to be able to be flexible and go around it

4. Prepare and inform the respondent: do the UX for your own interview, pave the path to an open conversation

5. Take notes and collect impressions: actions sometimes speak louder than words

6. Embrace the specifics of qualitative data

7. Practice and be patient: be willing to improve your interview skills, even if it takes time

Let's talk

How to Conduct Effective User Interviews in UX Research

User interviews are a crucial element of UX research . They serve as a window into your users' minds, enabling you to explore their motivations, preferences, pain points, and much more.

However, conducting effective user interviews is both an art and a science. It requires careful planning, skilled execution, and thoughtful analysis.

In this guide, we will delve into the process of conducting interviews that deliver rich insights to help you create extraordinary user experiences.

What are user interviews?

User interviews are one-on-one conversations between a researcher and a user that typically involve a predetermined set of open-ended questions .

However, they also allow space for spontaneous, probing questions based on the user's responses. The aim is to encourage users to share their experiences and thoughts freely, leading to richer and more nuanced insights.

User interviews are not a one-time activity. Conducted regularly, they can help you stay in tune with changing user needs and market trends. This ongoing feedback loop can fuel continuous improvement, innovation, and growth.

Why are user interviews important in UX research?

User interviews are an excellent way to gather qualitative data directly from your target audience, allowing you to understand user behavior, needs, and motivations.

While the quantitative data, collected with tools such as UX surveys , provides a broad overview, user interviews put a human face to that data. They enable you to hear the stories and experiences behind the numbers, fostering empathy and a deep connection with users. This empathetic understanding is critical to creating designs that resonate with users on an emotional level.

What’s more, during the design process, assumptions are often made about user needs and behaviors. Face-to-face conversations can validate or challenge these assumptions, leading to more accurate and effective design decisions.

To gather some initial feedback that can be discussed with your users during interviews, try surveys:

Why you should conduct user interviews

The question isn't why you should conduct user interviews, but rather, why wouldn't you? Here are a few compelling reasons to include them in your user research process .

Unearth deep insights : User interviews enable you to dig deep into the user's mindset, feelings, and attitudes. You can uncover intricate details about their preferences, pain points, and their journey with your product.
Humanize your data : While quantitative data can provide a macro view of user behavior, user interviews add a human touch to the numbers. They tell the story behind the data, helping to empathize with users on a human level.
Validate or challenge assumptions : User interviews can validate the assumptions made during the design process or challenge them, leading to breakthrough ideas and improvements.
Co-create with users : User interviews aren't just about extracting information; they're also a platform for idea generation. Users can provide unexpected ideas and solutions, leading to user-centric innovation.

When should you conduct user interviews?

User interviews are a versatile tool that can be integrated into multiple stages of the product development process. Each phase of the project provides a unique opportunity to engage with users, extract insights, and leverage them to improve the product.

Discovery phase

This is the initial stage of the product development process. At this point, you might have a product idea but you need to explore the problem space, validate the need for the solution, and gather information about the target user group.

User interviews conducted during the discovery phase help to provide an understanding of user needs, behaviors, and pain points. They offer insights into the context in which the product will be used and the potential value it could bring to users.

This qualitative data can serve as a foundation for forming user personas and guide the direction of the design process.

Ideation phase

This phase involves generating, developing, and refining ideas for your product. User interviews in the ideation phase are focused on getting feedback on different concepts and ideas.

They can help to understand which ideas resonate most with users, which ones may need refinement, and which should potentially be discarded. Users might also contribute their own innovative ideas during these discussions, leading to user-centric solutions that you may not have previously considered.

Testing phase

Once you have a prototype or an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), it's time to test it with users to gather their initial impressions and feedback.

User interviews at this stage allow you to gain an in-depth understanding of how users interact with your product, their overall experience, and any difficulties they may encounter.

After launch

Even after launching a product, the process of user research should continue. User interviews conducted post-launch help to measure user satisfaction, understand how the product is being used in the real world, and uncover any unforeseen issues or needs.

These interviews can also provide valuable insights for future enhancements or new features.

It’s a good idea to run a quick feature survey before you jump into user interviews:

Regular intervals

In addition to these specific project phases, it's also beneficial to conduct user interviews at regular intervals.

This can help you stay connected with your users, keep up with changing user needs, behaviors, and market trends, and continuously iterate and improve your product.

How to conduct a user interview

While seemingly straightforward, user interviews involve careful planning, execution, and analysis. Let's explore these stages in more detail.

Define your objectives

The first step in conducting user interviews is to define what you aim to learn from the process. Are you trying to understand the pain points users encounter when using your product? Or are you interested in their motivations for using a specific feature? Having a clear understanding of your objectives will help you keep the interviews focused and ensure you extract relevant information.

Recruit participants

Once you have a clear objective, you need to identify the right participants. These should be individuals from your target user group who can provide valuable insights related to your objectives.

Consider factors such as demographic characteristics, product usage, and experience level. It's also crucial to ensure diversity in your participant pool to capture a wide range of experiences and perspectives.

Surveys such as the template below are a great way to recruit research participants:

Prepare the interview guide

With your objectives and participants in place, the next step is to prepare the interview guide. This guide will include a list of open-ended questions that will help you extract the required information.

However, it's important to remain flexible during the interviews and ask follow-up questions based on the participant's responses. This can lead to valuable insights that you might not have anticipated.

The video below goes through some of the most common user interview questions:

Conduct the interviews

Conducting the interviews is both an art and a science. It's crucial to create an open and comfortable environment where participants feel free to share their thoughts and experiences. Begin the interview by explaining the purpose of the study, reassuring the confidentiality of their responses, and asking for their consent to proceed.

As the interview progresses, be patient and give participants ample time to respond. Use active listening techniques and paraphrase their responses to ensure understanding. Your role is to facilitate a meaningful conversation, not to guide their responses.

Remember, body language and tone of voice play a crucial role in fostering a positive environment. Be open, empathetic, and curious. Encourage users to elaborate, especially when they share interesting or unexpected insights.

Analyze and synthesize

After conducting the interviews, it's time to analyze and synthesize the collected data . This involves reviewing your notes or recordings and identifying patterns and key themes. You may use various methods such as affinity diagramming or thematic analysis to help with this process.

Remember, the goal is not just to compile a list of findings but to synthesize these into actionable insights. What did you learn about the user’s behaviors, needs, and motivations? How can these insights inform your design decisions? What changes or improvements do you need to make?

Share your findings

User interviews are a collaborative process, and it’s crucial to share your findings with the rest of the team. Present your insights in a clear, concise manner, making sure to highlight the key findings and their implications. This can be in the form of a UX research report , presentation, or workshop. By sharing your findings, you help to cultivate a shared understanding of the users, align the team, and guide informed decision-making.

Ask your users the right questions with Survicate

The power of user interviews lies in the dialogue you create, helping you to design not just for your users, but, most importantly, with your users.

Even though interviews are a crucial part of UX research, there are other tools that seamlessly complement them in discovering user needs and preferences.

Surveys in particular serve an important role in building an understanding of user experience. With an automated survey tool such as Survicate, not only can you delve into your users’ world but also analyze and visualize your data, turning raw insights into actionable findings.

Sign up for free for a 10-day free trial to start collecting insights with Survicate and take a step closer to creating a product that truly resonates with your users.

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Meta UX Researcher Interview Guide

Detailed, specific guidance on the Meta UX Researcher interview process - with a breakdown of different stages and interview questions asked at each stage

The role of a Meta UX Researcher

UX researchers conduct systematic research on target users in order to collect and analyze data that proves to be an aid in the product design process. A UX researcher is typically involved in two forms of research: qualitative and quantitative. The quantitative study is concerned with numbers and statistics. In terms of usability, this could imply determining how long it takes an average user to complete a task, what percentage of users finish the task successfully, and how many problems or bugs they encounter along the route.

Non-numerical insights, such as why consumers struggled to complete a task or how they felt while using a product, are investigated in qualitative research. If quantitative research tells us "what," qualitative research tells us "why."

Meta's user experience (UX) researchers attempt to intimately understand and improve the experiences of the over 2.4 billion individuals who use Meta every month across the world. The following guide will take you through the process of interviewing at Meta for the role of a UX Researcher.

The interview process unfolds like any other interview. Once you have applied for the job via Meta’s careers page or via a recruiter or using Linkedin. The stages for the interview are:

Application
Call with a recruiter
Telephonic interview/s
Presentation of a research plan
Onsite interviews

Please keep in mind that you will only be eligible for these steps if your application is shortlisted for further verification by the recruiter. Throughout the process, you will keep in touch with the recruiter.

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We've got the same guide also available to watch as a short video if you prefer consuming content that way.

Meta UX Researcher - Application

To begin, apply online through Meta's careers page, LinkedIn, or a referral. Assemble a professional design portfolio that reflects your experience and demonstrates your passion for what you do. To apply through Meta's career page , upload your résumé or share your LinkedIn profile with their recruiting team.

After you have submitted all of the relevant information and documentation, you will receive an email informing you if your application is shortlisted or not. If it is, a recruiter will call you within a week.

Relevant Guides

Meta ux researcher : recruiter phone screen.

The procedure begins with a casual phone call with a recruiter. He's there to find out what you're interested in and what you're good at. They are well prepared to select individuals with the desired skill set (quantity, quality, mixed approaches, etc.) because the research manager has already advised them of this.

The interviewer will go about asking questions based on your resume and cv and try to get a catch of your previous work. The interview may take up to 30 mins.

What the interviewer will assess

If you know what responsibilities you are applying for.
Your previous experience.
How good you are with customer’s needs.
Your successful projects in the past.
The first and most important thing you should do is list all of your accomplishments. This interviewer must ensure that you are a qualified candidate and are not wasting anyone's time.
Make no attempt to blend in. Especially if you are a beginner. Most interviewers seek and value genuineness. Instead of attempting to fit into a frame, be yourself and you'll have a higher chance of progressing to the next round.

Interview Questions

How well equipped do you think you are for this role?
Have you worked for customers before? What do you think is the main metric to keep in mind?
Why do you want to move on with your current job?
What is the difference between a UX designer and a UX researcher?
Have you ever led a project in the past?

Not sure if your resume is strong enough? Send it to a recruiter from your target company!

Meta ux researcher : initial screen.

You are scheduled for a phone interview based on your initial screening. The phone interview will be a video call in which an interviewer will lead you through a sample problem. There will be no correct answers, only an attempt to learn how you think about the strict limitations in an issue and come up with a solution. This is usually a very collaborative process, with the interviewer asking questions to guide you a little.

Along the way, the interview may include certain technical and behavioral questions to assess your core knowledge and innovative side. It can last up to 45 minutes.

Your ability to come up with potential ideas.
Your problem-solving skills.
Your approach towards major issues.
The feasibility of your ideas.
This sample problem could be one of the challenges that the company or other competitors are dealing with. Therefore, make sure to come up with concepts that are practical and attainable, rather than something that is extremely difficult to achieve.
Before beginning the actual interview, attempt to practice with some sample questions to get a taste for problem-solving.
Assume you're utilizing eye-tracking on a participant who has crossed his or her eyes and the calibration isn't working. What are you going to do?
Assume a group of developers wants to know why some users aren't engaging with a particular push function. They intend to conduct a survey that will include six yes/no questions and one question that will be answered via a text box. What do you think you'd say to them about their plan?
What would you ask users if you had two goods and only had one question to determine which they preferred?
What is your strongest skill as a UX researcher, and what advice would you provide to someone attempting to learn it?
What types of people do you regularly interact with?
Assume you make a usability proposal, and the engineers respond, "All of the usage data we have from millions of individuals suggests it is not an issue." What would your reaction be?

Meta UX Researcher : Research Plan Presentation

This is a round in which you will be needed to create a research plan and strategy, for which you will be provided ample time. On the day of the onsite interviews, this study will be discussed with 4–5 researchers, followed by 1:1 interviews with the people in the presentation, including research exercises.

This is an opportunity to put your research skills and capacities to the test, as well as your ability to construct a well-thought-out plan. As Meta is more interested in research skills and data, make sure to give it your all. Some sample prompts are:

Choose a challenge that you believe Meta will confront in the near future. Make a research plan outlining how you want to approach the problem.
Define a critical UX issue in Meta's products. Make a research strategy outlining how you intend to handle the problem.
You are collaborating with two company founders to create a music product for college students. You have only one week. How would you structure the research? What if you had endless time?

Read these articles

Meta ux researcher : onsite round.

The final round is onsite, where you will and present some of your previous work. The recruiter will provide detailed information about this well in advance. The folks who attend your presentation will be the same people who will interview you throughout the day. They will be given a pre-set coordinated list of questions that will cover many facets of what it means to be a successful researcher at Meta. You will be asked several skill questions that begin with a few assumptions and require you to develop a research strategy to test those assumptions.

Some interviews will also probe your stakeholder management abilities and ask behavioral questions about things you've done in the past that serve as examples of particular qualities.

Research capabilities & skills
Collaboration and communication
Your research about the firm
How you add value to the UX research team
Whether you can work out of your specialization when required
Be prepared to answer "why" questions. Prepare to describe your decision-making process as thoroughly as possible without being defended.
Researchers and interviewees alike are ecstatic to see the results make an impact on the product. Attempt to specify the impact at various levels: detailed design, product directions, and the stakeholders who will be impacted.
Keep your leadership abilities in the spotlight. When asked if you can work with cross-functional teams and lead a team, make sure to show complete confidence.
Describe a recent discovery research study you did that resulted in a large amount of data. How did you analyze the data, and how did you come up with insights and recommendations to improve the team?
How do you deal with circumstances in which individuals are doubtful of the value of your research, for example, when they challenge your sample size?
What is the difference, in your opinion, between research on healthcare items and research on ordinary consumer products?
Based on user feedback, your project manager determines that the default cell size in Excel is too tiny. What method would you take to the conclusion and related requests?
How would you approach research in order to adapt the product on a mobile platform?
We have a subscription growth issue. How would you go about researching it?
What was an amazing discovery or insight you gained from a recent project?
Any instances where you were unsuccessful in resolving a conflict?
As a researcher, who do you primarily collaborate with? What is the team's size?
How can research be applied to design? Give an example.
Assume you have three distinct UIs and want to know which one is the best. What would you do in this situation?
What are the flaws of personas? How do you overcome those flaws?
Consider an app that you enjoy using. Assume the product manager asks you to identify the top ten UX issues. How would you approach this?
How would you create a prototype for an in-vehicle phone keypad?
How do you know when a project is complete?
How would you go about conducting a user trial focused on email? And how would you safeguard a user's data if they opted to utilize their own email address during the experiment?
How do you tell whether your research was successful?

If you are selected or granted a 'yes' by the majority of interviewers after the onsite interview, you will be contacted by the recruiter within 4 to 5 business days to discuss your package. Best wishes!

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does the entire UX Researcher interview process at Meta typically take?

What should I know about Meta's approach to UX research and design during the interview process?

Are there behavioral or situational interview questions in the process?

How can I prepare for the research and communication interviews in the UX Researcher interview process at Meta?

Is there a portfolio or presentation component in the UX Researcher interview process?

Relevant interview guides

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Published on January 3, 2024

UX Research Interview Questions

Whether you’re a seasoned UX researcher or just starting your career in this field, interviews can be a challenging but exciting part of the job search process. To help you ace your UX research interviews, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of UX research interview questions that cover a wide range of topics.

These questions have been carefully curated to assess your knowledge, skills, and experience in UX research, as well as your ability to think critically and solve problems.

In this blog, we will explore various aspects of UX research and provide detailed insights into the interview process. We’ll discuss common interview question categories such as research methodologies, participant recruitment, data analysis, and reporting.

So, let’s dive in and ensure you’re fully prepared to ace your UX researcher job interview!

Ux research background questions, decision driven questions, technical knowledge, adaptability, tips and tricks for ux research interviews.

In a UX research interview, background questions are like friendly chats that help the interviewer dive into your experience and expertise in the field. They’re genuinely interested in learning about your previous roles, projects, and the cool methods you’ve used in your research work. It’s all about understanding your skills, knowledge, and how well you’d fit into the team.

When they ask you about your background, they’ll explore a variety of topics. The interviewers want to hear about your education, your work experience, and the specific research projects you’ve been a part of. It’s a chance for you to share your story and show them what makes you awesome in the world of UX research .

Here are some background-related questions along with the way you can answer them:

a) Can you describe your previous experience in UX research?

Highlight your relevant experience, including the methodologies you’ve used, the projects you’ve worked on, and the impact you’ve made. Provide specific examples that demonstrate your skills and expertise.

b) What motivates you to pursue a career in UX research?

Share your passion for understanding user behavior, solving complex problems, and improving user experiences. Explain how your skills align with your motivation, emphasizing your ability to empathize with users and uncover actionable insights.

c) How do you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and advancements in UX research?

Discuss your commitment to continuous learning, mentioning industry blogs, conferences, webinars, and online courses that you regularly engage with. Highlight any recent advancements you find particularly interesting and how you apply them to your work.

d) Can you explain your approach to conducting user research?

Outline your research process, including the steps you take to define research goals, select appropriate methods, recruit participants, gather data, and analyze insights. Emphasize the importance of a human-centered approach and iterative design.

e) How do you effectively communicate research findings to stakeholders?

Explain how you tailor your communication to different stakeholders’ needs and preferences. Discuss your ability to distill complex findings into actionable insights, using visual aids and storytelling techniques to engage and educate stakeholders.

f) How do you handle challenging situations or conflicting priorities in UX research?

Share your experience in managing tight deadlines, limited resources, or disagreements within a team. Highlight your problem-solving skills, flexibility, and ability to prioritize tasks while maintaining a user-centered focus.

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These questions play a crucial role in shaping the design and development of user-centered products and services. So, it’s really important to understand their significance and be prepared to answer them like a pro!

Decision-driven questions are all about getting insights that directly influence the decisions made in designing a product or service. They aim to uncover what users prefer, expect, and what issues they face when it comes to different aspects of a product. In an interview, you might come across questions like:

“How would you determine which features are most important to users?”
“Can you describe a time when user research helped influence a design decision?”
“What methods would you employ to identify user needs and pain points?”
“How do you prioritize design improvements based on user feedback?”

Here are some questions with tips for answers:

a) Can you provide an example of a research project where your insights directly influenced a design decision?

Select a project where your research findings had a significant impact on product design or features. Describe how your insights led to specific design changes, improved user satisfaction, or increased business outcomes.

b) How do you determine which research methods to use in a given project?

Explain how you assess project requirements, goals, and constraints to select the most appropriate research methods. Discuss your experience with qualitative and quantitative methods, and how you balance them to gain comprehensive insights.

c) How do you handle situations where stakeholders are skeptical about the value of user research?

Discuss your strategies for educating stakeholders about the benefits of user research. Share success stories where research provided valuable insights, leading to improved products, increased user satisfaction, or business growth.

d) How do you ensure the validity and reliability of your research findings?

Talk about your attention to detail, rigorous data collection, and analysis processes. Highlight your commitment to following established research methodologies and best practices, including triangulation, participant recruitment, and data validation.

e) Can you explain your approach to conducting usability testing?

Describe your methodology for planning and conducting usability tests, including setting objectives, defining test scenarios, selecting participants, and analyzing results. Mention your expertise in identifying usability issues and providing actionable recommendations.

f) How do you involve stakeholders in the research process?

Discuss how you collaborate with stakeholders throughout the research process, from defining research objectives to interpreting and applying insights. Explain the importance of involving stakeholders to ensure alignment and buy-in.

Be concise, articulate, and focused on providing concrete examples that highlight your ability to make informed design decisions based on user insights.

UX research technical knowledge questions play a crucial role in evaluating an individual’s expertise and competence in the field of user experience research.

Now, when you encounter these UX research technical knowledge questions, it’s essential to approach them with confidence and a structured mindset. You want to showcase your knowledge and experience by providing accurate and concise answers.

Take the time to clearly explain your understanding of the specific research method or technique being discussed. Show how it can be applied to gather meaningful insights and ultimately enhance user experiences.

Let’s take a look at some example questions to give you an idea:

a) What software tools do you typically use for UX research?

Mention popular tools like UserZoom, Optimal Workshop, or UserTesting.com, and explain how you leverage them for various research activities such as remote testing, survey creation, or data analysis.

b) How familiar are you with statistical analysis in UX research?

Highlight your proficiency in using statistical methods to analyze research data. Discuss your experience with tools like Excel, SPSS, or R, and your ability to derive meaningful insights from quantitative data.

c) Are you comfortable working with HTML/CSS or prototyping tools?

If you have relevant experience, share your proficiency in working with HTML/CSS for conducting research or creating interactive prototypes. Mention any prototyping tools you are familiar with, such as Figma, Sketch, or InVision.

d) Can you explain the difference between quantitative and qualitative research methods?

Provide a concise definition of each method and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. Give examples of when each method is most appropriate and how you integrate them to gain a holistic understanding of user experiences.

e) Have you conducted A/B testing or other types of experimentation in your research?

Talk about your experience with A/B testing and other experimental methods to evaluate design alternatives or measure the impact of changes. Highlight how you analyze the results and make data-driven recommendations.

f) How do you ensure data privacy and ethical considerations in your research?

Emphasize the importance of respecting user privacy and following ethical guidelines. Discuss your experience obtaining informed consent, anonymizing data, and ensuring compliance with relevant regulations like GDPR or CCPA.

Let’s talk about UX research adaptability questions, which play a vital role in understanding how users can easily adapt to new technologies and design changes. These questions give researchers valuable insights into users’ comfort levels, their willingness to learn, and their overall adaptability when it comes to interacting with different interfaces.

Why are these questions so important, you might wonder? Well, by confidently answering adaptability questions, researchers can gather valuable information that guides the development of user-centered adaptive user interfaces. This means creating digital products and services that are tailored to meet the needs of users who might encounter frequent updates and improvements in technology.

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, technology is constantly evolving, and user interfaces are frequently updated and improved. That’s why it’s crucial for users to be able to adapt to these changes. The success and usability of digital products and services heavily depend on users’ ability to embrace new or changing experiences.

To give you an idea, let’s take a look at some of these adaptability questions:

a) How do you handle unexpected changes or disruptions during a research project?

Explain your ability to adapt to unexpected challenges and changes in research plans. Share examples where you successfully adjusted your approach or timeline to ensure the project’s success.

b) Have you ever had to conduct research for a product or domain you were unfamiliar with? How did you approach it?

Describe a situation where you had to quickly familiarize yourself with a new domain and share your approach to gaining domain knowledge. Highlight your ability to learn quickly and apply your research skills effectively.

c) How do you manage multiple projects or priorities simultaneously?

Discuss your organizational and time management skills, emphasizing your ability to prioritize tasks, delegate when necessary, and maintain focus on delivering quality results across multiple projects.

d) Can you adapt your research methodologies for different target audiences?

Demonstrate your flexibility in tailoring research methods to various user groups, taking into account factors such as age, cultural background, or accessibility requirements. Provide examples where you successfully adapted your approach to different user segments.

e) How do you handle feedback or criticism of your research findings?

Discuss your open-mindedness and willingness to accept constructive feedback. Describe a situation where you received feedback on your research and how you incorporated it to improve the quality of your work.

f) Can you share an example of a time when you had to pivot your research focus due to changing project requirements?

Explain how you handled a situation where research priorities shifted abruptly. Share how you adapted your research plan, communicated the changes to stakeholders, and still delivered valuable insights.

Sharing specific examples of successful adaptation or challenges faced can help researchers understand the factors that contribute to or hinder users’ adaptability.

Successful teamwork and collaboration are essential in the field of user experience (UX) research. UX research team and collaboration questions play a vital role in facilitating effective research studies and delivering impactful insights.

These questions are specifically designed to explore the dynamics within a research team, uncover communication preferences, and identify strategies for efficient collaboration.

Let’s go through some of the possible questions:

a) How do you collaborate with other team members, such as designers or product managers?

Highlight your ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams. Describe your communication style, collaboration techniques, and how you contribute to creating a shared understanding of user needs and goals.

b) Have you ever faced challenges when working with stakeholders who had conflicting opinions or priorities?

Share a situation where you successfully managed conflicting stakeholder opinions or priorities.

c) How do you ensure research findings are effectively incorporated into the design and development process?

Explain your approach to collaborating with designers and developers to translate research insights into actionable design decisions.

d) Can you describe a time when you had to resolve a disagreement within a research team?

Share an example of a situation where there was a difference of opinion or conflict within the research team.

e) How do you foster a culture of research within an organization?

Share examples of how you’ve encouraged collaboration and knowledge-sharing among team members, and how you’ve influenced decision-making processes.

f) How do you handle remote or distributed teams when conducting research?

Discuss your experience conducting research with remote or distributed teams, highlighting the tools and techniques you’ve used to facilitate communication, collaboration, and remote user testing.

Prepare Your Background

Before the interview, take the time to review your previous roles, projects, and methodologies used in your research work. Be ready to articulate your responsibilities, achievements, and the impact of your work. Prepare specific examples that demonstrate your skills and expertise.

Understand User-Centered Design

Familiarize yourself with the user-centered design process and its key principles. Be prepared to discuss how you have collaborated with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and designers in past projects. Showcase your ability to create research deliverables such as personas, journey maps, or user interviews.

Highlight Decision-Making Abilities

Show your ability to use research insights to inform design decisions. Discuss how you have identified user needs, prioritized improvements, and influenced design choices based on research findings. Provide concrete examples that showcase the impact your research had on the final product or service.

Brush Up on Technical Knowledge

Review different research methodologies, tools, and techniques commonly used in UX research. Ensure you have a solid understanding of research planning, data collection methods, data analysis techniques, and reporting. Stay updated with recent advancements and trends in the field.

Showcase Adaptability

Demonstrate your willingness to adapt to new technologies and design changes. Reflect on past experiences where you successfully adapted to evolving interfaces or software updates. Discuss the strategies you employed and any challenges you faced during the adaptation process.

Emphasize Teamwork and Collaboration

Highlight your experience working effectively within a research team. Discuss your role in collaborative decision-making, conflict management, and knowledge sharing. Showcase your communication skills and preferred communication styles, channels, and strategies.

Be Clear and Concise

When answering interview questions, provide clear and concise responses that highlight your relevant experience, achievements, and skills. Focus on the most important points and avoid rambling or providing excessive details.

Provide Specific Examples

Support your answers with specific examples from your past projects or research initiatives. Sharing concrete evidence of your skills, accomplishments, and the impact of your work will make your responses more compelling and memorable.

Demonstrate a Comprehensive Understanding

Show your depth of knowledge by explaining research methodologies, techniques, and best practices in a clear and concise manner. Avoid jargon or overly technical language, but ensure you convey a strong understanding of the subject matter.

Be Confident and Passionate

Approach the interview with confidence, enthusiasm, and a genuine passion for UX research. Let your excitement and dedication to creating meaningful user experiences shine through in your answers.

Remember to practice your responses beforehand, conduct mock interviews if possible, and research the organization you’re interviewing with to tailor your answers accordingly. By following these tips and tricks, you’ll be well-prepared to showcase your skills, expertise, and suitability for the UX research role.

In a UX research interview, it’s super important to come prepared and feel confident when answering questions about your background, decision-making abilities, technical know-how, adaptability, and teamwork skills. By optimizing your responses in each of these areas, you can really show off your expertise, qualifications, and how you’ll contribute effectively to user-centered design goals.

By connecting all your responses together, you’ll be able to showcase your comprehensive skill set and your passion for creating impactful user experiences. This is your chance to really shine and show them why you’re the perfect fit for the role. Leave a lasting impression on the interviewers and make them remember you long after the interview is over.

Take your career to new heights with the comprehensive range of UX courses provided by the Interaction Design Foundation. Discover the transformative power of UX by enrolling in one of our cutting-edge courses , and unlock your true potential as a UX professional.

Master UX Research with UXtweak – a comprehensive online UX research tool . UXtweak helps with testing the usability of your digital products, from prototypes to production, and conducting qualitative and quantitative user research studies. The best thing is, you can do it absolutely free of charge by registering for your free account .

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Faq: ux research interview question.

Concentrate on clarity, relevance, and specific examples. Highlight your background, decision-making abilities, technical knowledge, adaptability, and teamwork skills. Share concrete experiences that demonstrate your expertise and the impact of your work on user-centered UX design .

Very important. You should understand and explain different research methodologies, tools, and techniques. Be prepared to discuss research planning, data collection methods, data analysis techniques, and reporting. Keeping up-to-date with recent advancements in UX research is also crucial.

Daria Krasovskaya is the Head of Content at UXtweak. Since content quality is her responsibility, she works closely with our UX researchers, UX/UI designers and content writers to ensure that we publish high-quality, informative, and engaging content on our blog and guides. During her studies for a degree in Marketing communication, she discovered her interest in user experience and design. Daria is not only a key member of the UXtweak team but also contributes to other websites and UX publications. Her articles can be found on well-known sites like UX Booth, where she shares her insights on UX topics.

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