UX Playbook

##2 Interviewing to discover opportunities

Opportunities are chances for us to intervene in a way that makes our customers’ lives better. We start with our desired product outcome and ask which customer needs, pain points, desires, and wants — if addressed — would drive that outcome.

The best way to answer this question is through customer interviews. That's why the product team interviews at least one customer per week for at least 20 minutes to discover opportunities.

We frame opportunities as something a customer literally says. This helps to ensure that we’re solving a real customer need and not a business need disguised as a customer need.

What to ask users during interviews

The key in interviewing is to learn about who you are building your product for, not what to build. Our primary research question in any interview should be: What needs, pain points, and desires matter most to this customer? Think about what you need to learn in the context of your selected product outcome, and tailor the scope of the question on this. A narrow scope will help you optimise your existing product. A broader scope will help you uncover new opportunities. The broadest questions might help you uncover new markets.

The focus is always on outcomes: our goal is not just to ship a product, but to ship a product that has an impact on our customers in a way that creates value for our business. When interviewing, ask questions that help you get closer to this outcome.

Ladder of evidence

If you want to build a successful product, you need to understand your customers' actual behaviour, not the story they tell themselves. So don’t ask what someone would do: this is weak evidence since the person is speculating about their future behaviour. Their answer might even be the socially acceptable one instead of the truth.

Instead, ask about real behaviour. Asking what has happened in the past in general / usually / regularly / often gives you some facts, but it's better to ask to describe a specific past situation. Then, besides the facts, you also get context (emotions, attitudes, rationales, frustrations, needs). This leads to way more understanding, and good insights (opportunities).

Even better is being there to observe real behaviour as it happens, either simulated (usability test) or in real life. Here, don't ask about their opinion, just observe what they really do, and let them talk us through their own context.

When interviewing customers, always ask open questions (no leading questions). Listen more than you talk. Ask why (a lot). Ask _"Tell me more about that"_. And if you hear solutions, bring it back to the problem behind them: ask _"What would that solution do for you?"_.

Tools