UX Research Interview Guide With Script (Remote)
Let’s assume you’ve received permission from your boss to conduct remote UX research, then you’ve decided the research method, designed the entire plan and you’ve hired the target customer.
Here is the main part of the research is Conducting UX Research and you’re now unsure how to conduct the interview remotely. What to ask? how to ask? and what ethics should I follow?
Don’t worry; I’ve included a UX research interview guide with an example for an online gaming application (ABC Rummy game) below, which you can feel free to use for your next project.
Topic: White the research topic. (Example: Game Player Research Persona for ABC Rummy game)
Method: Mention the research method. (Example: Remote Semi-structured qualitative interviews + Contextual Inquiry)
Research Plan: Peste the link of your entire research plan.
Time: Mention the average time you will be spending per user. (Example: Average 30–40 minutes per user)
Intent: Mention the goals of the research. (Example: See-through user’s eyes, Understand behavior and pain points, Not asking the user for solutions)
Script
1. Greet: (Time — 1minutes)
Hello …., How are you? My name is… and yours?
2. Intro: (Time — 3 minutes)
Moderator (with a big smile!) :0 Thanks for coming in today! We’re constantly trying to improve our product, and getting your frank feedback is a really important part of that. Before we start, I need to ask you to sign this non-disclosure agreement. I like to highlight two parts of this. First, it’s a reminder that what I show you and what we discuss here today are confidential. It also gets your permission for me to record our session — just for our own internal use. That way we can go back and review it later. And, of course, you’re free to take a break or leave at any time during
the session. Please take your time reviewing this NDA and let me know if you have any questions. [Send NDA to the participants to acknowledge.] Thanks! [Moderator: After NDA is signed, start recording.]
I like to keep these sessions pretty informal. I’m just trying to learn from you today. I’ll ask a lot of questions, but I’m not testing you. There are no right or wrong answers. I’ll start this session by asking some background questions. Then I’ll show you some things we’re working on, and ask you to do some tasks. As you work on the tasks, please think aloud. This means that you should try to give a running commentary on what you’re doing as you work through the tasks. Tell me what you’re trying to do and how you think you can do it. If you get confused or don’t understand something, please tell me. If you see things you like, tell me that too. Since I didn’t design this, you won’t hurt my feelings or flatter me. In fact, frank, candid feedback is the most helpful.
Again. . . I’m not testing you. I’m testing the prototype. If you get stuck or confused, it’s not your fault. It helps us identify the problems in the design that we need to fix.
If and when you do get stuck, I’m going to try not to answer your questions or tell you what to do. I’m just trying to see what you would do if you were using it on your own. But don’t worry — I’ll help you if you get completely stuck.
Today we’re going to use a prototype. That means some links or buttons or features may not work quite right. You can still click anywhere you like to do the tasks. When you run into something that’s not working, I’ll let you know.
Do you have any questions before we begin?
3. Discovery: (Time — 8 minutes)
[We will be using discovery questions to better understand users ’existing behaviors and attitudes related to whatever we’re studying. Refer to what you wrote above under “what we want to learn.” Asking open-ended questions (Who? Where? When? What? Why? How?). Try to get the info that will help us personalize the subsequent test tasks for this user. And need to remember to start out with easy-to-answer questions to help build rapport and trust.]
Type of questions: Introductory questions
Examples:
A. What is your profession/ job responsibility or what is your day look like?
B. What kind of online game do you play?
C. Have you ever played Rummy before? When did you last played?
D. When did you last play the online Rummy game?
E. What applications do you use for the Rummy game?
F. Which application do you like more? And Why you like it more compare to others?
G. How many hours do you play online on our app or others?
H. Apart from online Rummy what online games do you play?
I. How long have you been playing Rummy on our app?
[Please Note: This discussion will be open-ended and more conversational, this is the phase of our Qualitative research where will be making our user comfortable and will try to know about their life, day to day activity and their gameplay habit. This questionnaire order could vary from user group to group.]
4. Tasks: (Time — 15 minutes)
Moderator: Now I’d like to show you some rough prototypes of ideas we’re experimenting with. These are just *prototypes or in some cases just pictures of screens. Even though they look real, they won’t work completely. You don’t have to worry about breaking anything.
*I would highly suggest reminding the user that this is a prototype, even though it is the actual app because I have noticed that people get bais once they know this is the original product and they have done well because the term prototype is more casual, they can do their job in a more comfortable manner. As a result, we will get unbiased behavior and we need to provide them with a separate app where they can log in without a user id or password.
Test Task Scenario: “Please open this app (ABC Rummy game) and if you want to play a practice game then can you show me how would you play a game?”
Goal: Here we will observe and ask some follow-up questions about the part of our app’s Tutorial/Practice game to understand the user’s mental model and the answers to our research questions.
Researcher’s Activity: A. Focusing area: Tutorial/Practice games, Game Formats.
A. Focusing area: Tutorial/Practice games, Game Formats.
Observation(Empathy + User’s emotions + Unconscious behavior): Observe their activity and write down or take a screenshot of the crucial points which could be important for the analysis part.
Follow-up probes: (Tutorial/Practice games + Game Formats)
A. Which part of the page were you looking at?
B. What did you think of that?
C. So what happened there?
D. What would you do next? Why?
E. Was that what you expected? Why or why not?
F. What did you think of that?
G. Why did you choose this option?
H. Why did you complete the tutorial or did you skip it? Why? What did you understand after finishing the tutorial?
I. In what ways would you want this changed to make it better for you?
J. What additional info would have helped?
[Asking follow-up questions could be really helpful to understand what? But need to keep in mind it shouldn’t be leading and the order of the questions could be contextual]
Think-aloud protocol: In psychology and a range of social sciences, it’s an important tool to understand what is going on in their mind it’ extracts information from users’ unconscious expressions or behavior.
Example 1: User 1: “Ohh! It’s cool”. (expression)
Moderator: “What’s cool?” (question)-Think-aloud protocol
User 1: “I really like this animation…” (answer)
Example 2: User 1: “Damn!”. (expression)
Moderator: “What happened there?” (question)-Think-aloud protocol
User 1: “This keyboard blocking the area of my visual, how should I see the captcha and type it parallelly… ?” (answer)
5. Debrief: (Time — 10 minutes)
[Here we will be asking some general past experience about our user’s but the main point is we should not be asking the direct leading question] Type of questions: Specifying questions, Direct questions, Indirect questions, Silence.
Focusing area: Game Formats, Add Cash Journey, Address Form, Game Table experience, Private Tables/Leaderboards.
A. How would you describe your past and current experience with the ABC Rummy game? Anything else?… (silence)… [Indirect question]
B. What do think about cash games on ABC Rummy game? …(silence)…Was it fun playing? What’s makes it fun? If no, why? [Direct questions + Indirect question]
C. When was the last time you lost games, what you felt that time? …(silence)..(I mean do you feel that the platform and the players have played fair? If yes, why? If no, what led to that feeling? Actually, I am trying to understand your feelings.) [Indirect question + Direct questions]
D. How was your past experience with adding cash to your wallet? Can you please tell me more about it? (Did you face any issues with adding cash to the app? If yes then, Please explain?) [Specifying questions + Indirect question]
E. Would you prefer competing with your friends or strangers on the ABC Rummy game (practice/cash games)? [Direct question]
F. What do you like/dislike about this? [Indirect question]
G. If you had 3 wishes to make this better for you, What would they be? Why?[Indirect question]
6 and 7. Wrap Up and Cool Down: (Time — 3 minutes)
This has been incredibly helpful. [Moderator: Try to briefly summarize some key parts of the discussion or issues.] Your input is really valuable for the team and me as we think about the next steps for these ideas. We really appreciate your taking the time to come in, and answering all of my questions. Thanks SO much! [Moderator: Give participant incentive gift.]
Stop recording!
Please note: Since we are choosing here Semi-structured qualitative interviews for our study that reason we will be asking some more relevant follow-up questions apart from this research script or based on the user group we might skip some of the questions and the order of the questions could be different in the particular segment of research activity during the time of actual research.
Bonus tips:
- Ask follow-up questions.
- When in doubt, ask for clarification.
3. Answer questions with questions.
4. Keep it personal and concrete, Avoid hypotheticals.
5. Don’t pitch.
6. Watch the time(Secretly).
7. Stay neutral when showing the design or prototype.
8. Check non-verbal cues(like: are they comfortable, nervous, bored? etc)
9. Observe more.
10. Make them comfortable
