Need-finding Research
The aim of ‘need’ finding research research is to understand how people may have problems they don’t (often) recognise or how are people enduring the world around them, and to understand how people build workarounds for these problems when they are not being taken care of.
Considerations during interviewing for need finding research:
- Where that person is in their everyday life? (Tell me more about you)
- Asking them about themselves, contextual enquiry
- Using lots of open questions
- We believe we can help you (as opposed to: we believe you can help us)
- Let’s think through how you navigate through a problem
Of course interviews will vary quite a lot depending on what you're trying to achieve, but here is a guide.
The Goal
So why interview? It's definitely to dive deeper into understanding people, and likely the people that have already engaged with your given product or service. What do they care about, what’s important to them, who are they as people, what do they value? It’s important to understand this because what people value shapes their behaviour and their decisions.
What you are trying to learn:
- About people
- What they love
- What they wish they could change
- Where they are going (in life)
- What they want to get out of their experiences
How to do this
- Understand the true needs and priorities of your customers/readers/target audience/end users
- Understand the context in which your users will interact with what you’re designing
- Replace assumptions about what people need and why, with actual insightS
- Create a mental model of how the users see the world
- Create design targets (personas) to represent the needs of the user in all decision-making
- Hear how real people use language to develop the voice of the product / service
Considerations
- Physical environment - Where are people when they consider or interact with information related to your products? What devices are being used? Alone or with others?
- Mental Model - What do they expect, and how do those expectations make it more or less likely that they would interact with the product in the ways we want them to?
- Habits - How does the user already solve the problem you are trying to solve for them, if indeed they do?
- Relationships - who finds and shares ideas for activities and how are decisions made?
The Plan
Don’t assume! Become interested in other people, do not relate your own experiences or use your own anedotes to shape the interview. Never ask people what they want - avoid people syaing things they think the interviewer wants to hear at all costs.
Preparation
Context
- Ensure you know who is doing what: leading, note taking, etc.
- Think about who you’re talking to: Be sensitive to the person’s background etc. What are the local rules? Respect people’s surroundings
- Make sure you know the participant will be comfortable
- Prepare an outline of your interview questions in advance, but don’t be afraid to stray from it.
Actively Listen
- Listen - allow tangents, let people think
- Develop familiarity with the person
- Build rapport so they see you as a friend / trustworthy
- The aim is to get people to get comfortable and open up, try to understand how people see things and what that means
- Think: I’m here to listen to you, I want to understand who you are as a person, I want to connect
- Encourage participants to share their thoughts and go about their business.
- Avoid leading questions and closed yes/no questions. Ask follow-up questions.
- Also note the exact phrases and vocabulary that participants use.
Just in case
- Don’t be afraid to shut it down early if you find yourself in an unproductive interview situation.
- Sometimes an interview subject goes taciturn or hostile. It happens and the best thing you can do is move on to the next one. There is no rule that says you need to hang in until you’ve attempted to have every single one of your questions answered.
Interview Guide
Opening (5 mins)
Aim: A Check in
Guiding Comments/Questions:
- Thank you for participating
- Is this still a good time? Will we be interrupted?
- Explain that all information will remain confidential, will be anonymous and only used internally to improve the products/services provided - ask for recording consent
- Introductions of who is in the room
- What we’re looking to achieve, share the goal for the research - keep very high level: you are looking to learn more about the people who engage with your product/serivce and how they see its context
- If there is any question you don’t want to answer, just let us know!
- Any questions about the process up front?
Introduction (10 mins)
Aim: Make it about them!
Guiding Comments/Questions:
- “Tell me about yourself” (then build off of what is being said - don’t judge!)
- “I see you live in XXX, what do you like to do for fun there?”
- “Tell me about your phone”
- “Do you use social media,” “why,” “what does it represent to you?”
- “Tell me about your favourite app, why”
- Ask what is important to that person, how the person thinks, the decisions they make
- Try to find out who they are (surface level)
- Kids, Profession, Where are you in life -- if getting personal feels difficult, don't do it
The Nitty-Gritty (30-45 mins)
Aim: Deeper understanding of how they think, the decisions they make
Guiding Comments / Questions Here ask about the thing you want to test:
- Tell me about the last time you... ?
- What made it memorable?
- What do you love about the idea of... ?
- Why do you... ?
- What help do you feel you need to make decisions when they need to be made?
- How have things changed over the years for you?
- Tell me about you approach... ?
- How you search, plan, consider and decide?
- What’s important?
- What’s meaningful?
- What are the challenges?
Go deep if possible - this is hopefully when the rapport built early on pays off and the participant opens up. Listen for the questions the person asks you!
Close (10-15 mins)
Aim: Ensure to part in good spirits
Guiding Comments / Questions
- Go back to light content
- Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about what we discussed today?
- Thank you
- Wrap up - allow unprovoked questions/statements
- Any other questions, comments or feedback, just let us know!
- Goodbye
After the interview
Synthesis
- Ideally plan a gap between interviews
- Write down the things that really stick out immediately
- Talk about what was heard and capture as much as you can
- Find big points of alignment between interviewers
- Write down into a debrief
- Work on ‘how might we’s’
- What did you hear that is important, why was that?
- Build/add to a recommendation set
Between interviews
- Take care of yourself emotionally
- Humans have lives that are very tumultuous
- Stand for 10 mins
Resources
Good luck!!