There’s a trade off between capability and usability. This is, as far as I know, no one has figured out how to achieve maximum capability and maximum usability in the same device. There’s a trade off. In prospect, capability seems way more important than usability. In practice, the reverse is true.
- Barry Schwartz
User interviews are a user research method that involves asking a series of questions relating to their organization and previous experience working with products.
You think you know, but chances are, you have no idea. With user interviews, we can gain insight to your user’s goals, frustrations, background, and history. We get answers to the tough questions by gathering objective answers to some of the hardest questions.
The important thing is that you get to know who your users are. Even if you don’t do any usability testing, this one user research mechanism can help unlock many secrets your team can use to design better products. When combined with traditional usability testing and user-centered design methodologies, you can achieve positive results very quickly.
A user interview typically involves asking the user a series of questions in relation to the product or service you’ll be providing them. We like to start with questions regarding who they are, where they come from, what their demographic looks like—and then ask application specific questions from there.
At the end of the day, you don’t have to use the system and neither do we. To build products that make a lasting impression, you have to start from the bottom up, not from the top down (as most projects are run). We have many exercises that aide in building the best design, like card sorting, white boarding, and joint collaborative design.
We build design artifacts to help the development team remember who we’re working for:
- Personas/Segments
- Scenarios
- User Stories
