Who should I interview for user research?

We’ve shared why user research (UXR) is important and why we like starting with a survey.

The next piece is who to survey and interview. Getting these groups right ensures the data you collect is valid and respected by anyone on your team who will be using it.

If your team members doubt the methodology or responses you’ve wasted time and we want to help you avoid that - time is our most important asset.

At this point in the process we hope you’ve identified a clear goal for this UXR project. If you haven’t - start there.

The source of your data is critical - pick the right people

These should be simple to segment from user demographics and behaviors available to you today. Do not wait to have better customer segmentation data before you do some user research.

• If you’re running into the issue of truly not tracking much about your customers’ actions, take that as something to prioritize but do some user research anyways

Examples:

• Users with an active membership for 3+ months, NPS response 6-8, living in major city
• Users active in the last 30 days, NPS response >8, activated in all 3 product features

You want to select a group of your users who can have an informed opinion, plus some known people who have fresh perspective and some you know struggled in the area you’re exploring.

Let’s tackle retention as an example

UXR Goal: Understand why drop-off is highest around month 4

• We’re assuming you’ve dug into if this is true for all cohorts based on acquisition channel, type of subscription, onboarding experience, and other main variables.

User Segment(s) to survey and interview

• Users in their first ~15 days post purchase
• Users active between day 30-60 post purchase
• Users who churned at any point, but particularly nice to get some live interviews of people who churned at month 4
• Users who have been active, paying subscribers, with high NPS scores, in the longest-active cohort

Its important to talk with a range of users as you see from above and, if you can, to ensure you interview the groups that are high risk/unhappy about what you’re looking into and the users who are loving your product/service or feature.

Unhappy customers are so helpful - even if the interview feels a little tough because there’s a lot of complaining, even if the user gets a little spicy and makes it personal, even if you think they’re mostly wrong - you’ll learn a lot.

Your happiest customers can be easy to make assumptions about or even to forget about - why bother them if they’re happy!? Talk to them - they will surprise you and provide great feedback as long as you give them the space and curiosity to share their insights.

Happy surveying,

Rethink

‍