INTERVIEW

Why do you want to conduct interviews in the context of innovation and design?

Whenever you want to develop an innovation or design a new product or service, you do this to help your customers accomplish their goals. In a more convenient matter than they used to do. Paramount to this is understanding your customer's context, obstacles and desires. That is where interviews enter the story. You want to learn from their previous experiences to gain a better understanding of what can be improved.

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How does it work?

As in any act of research you conduct, you know what you want to learn. You prepare these interviews well to make sure you learn what you need to learn.

So, before you start an interview, you need to know:

• What you want to learn from the research
• Who are you going to engage, and why
• How are you going to conduct the interview

What you want to learn

Understanding what you want to learn begins by conducting thorough desk research. During that research, you map your unknowns. This desk research involves market research to learn about existing alternatives. However, prior to conducting interviews, you should inquire about past experiences, the desired outcome, and the context in which these experiences are lived.

Conducting thorough research will greatly benefit you by asking the right questions. Only asking the right questions will provide you with the wanted insights.

Who are you going to engage?

Having a significant impact on a large group of people is what everyone aspires to. However, only interviewing average users will give you a poor understanding of where that impact can be made. You do not want to ignore these average users, but most of you will learn from the extremes. Their experiences will show you where to improve what already exists.

How will you conduct the interview?

You want to capture as many insights as possible. Therefore, you need to create a context or environment that is ideal for conducting the interview while also being perfect for bringing the interviewees at ease. Think carefully about the context you will create:

• Will you conduct the interview online or in real life?
• Will you conduct the interview solely or in duos?
• Will you interview during the experience or in your office?

Be careful to always ask open questions. And be considerate about the questions you ask. Go in-depth and make sure people are invited to share their experiences rather than confirm your assumptions.

Ask also for what you have forgotten to ask. There might be things you didn't think about.

Knowing what you do not know you need to know is one of the most challenging aspects of customer research.

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