Finding Interviewees for User Testing
In my career so far, I have conducted a lot of interviews. There are many things we need to take into consideration when conducting interviews. It being the main source for data and the try and analyse user needs and action, we need it more than ever in this era of tech driven world!
In my journey, initially I had a lot of trouble speaking to strangers. WOW that is still at times overwhelming. To expect a stranger first of all make time and speak and next open their heart and speak comfortably. Everyone needs a bit of time to speak comfortably. For this very reason, I started keeping my first call a dummy call or a preparation call to make myself comfortable speaking to and asking a new set of research questions I have come up with for the particular project.
Speaking of questions, that was my next challenge I came across. Coming up with open ended and maximum 5 to 10 questions and/or tasks maximum without any bias. We always have preconceived answers about most of the questions. And also due to secondary research we grow more ideas and more biased way of looking at solution. I used already think the solution is right beforehand, which of course with practise and experience I stopped assuming at results and focused more on coming up with the question and tasks more in depth. So in short it is very important to come up with open ended questions and what are the problems you think might be there, so can find the right answers from the interviewees, instead of the answers what you want to hear.
Last but not the least is finding interviewees. Well who doesn’t have this issue. Its not easy to find the right users unless you have existing user database. If you have a new product in hand or you don’t have a pre existing data base, here are few ways I found. I usually have done remote based interviews.
1. Try reaching users via social media platform like linkedIn and Facebook. As, having 15 interviewees maximum and 5 at a minimum these platforms are pretty helpful.
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2. In websites like Go To Meeting (gotomeeting.com) and WebEx (webex.com) you can conduct he interview by asking them to share the screen and explain, as if they were physically present.
3. Another way of testing with users in UserZoom (userzoom.com) and Loop11 (loop11.com) which walk customers through the task and record their tasks including their facial expressions.
4. Usertesting.com is another website which has a set of trained users to speak out loud as they are doing any task or answering a question looking at your product.
These are some of the places I find helpful to conduct interviews for user testing and collect data to analyse the solution is right or needs more improvement. By doing this it helps me understand where exactly can the solution be improved if necessary and best part is I enjoy surprise or unexpected actions of the users, that help me learn more about my users for whom I am designing for.
Source: Customer Analytics For Dummies