UX user interviews: Tips, best practices, and resources

User interviews are crucial to the product design process. They allow design and product teams to gain insight into the needs, behaviors, pain points, needs, and motivations of product users. These key insights help us make decisions in the UX design process and ensure that the final product meets the user’s needs.

Let’s go through how to set up an effective user interview process. We’ll discuss why we use interviews during UX research at different stages of the product, the kinds of data you can collect, and how to build the script and create the questions. To round out this resource, we’ll also talk about what you can do with the data, and explore tips, best practices, and pitfalls to avoid before, during, and after the interview.

In addition, you will find a list of tools (including AI tools) to create a script, conduct the interview, and summarize insights into a final report, or other methods like user journeys and user personas.

Editor’s note: This article was updated by the author on 24 February 2025 to provide additional insights, such as comparing different types of user interviews, exploring how user interviews fit into different aspects of the product lifecycle, providing a downloadable ChatGPT prompt template for writing user interview scripts, and more.

What are user interviews, and why do they matter?

User interviews are structured discussions, held one-on-one or in small groups, that explore a target audience’s goals, behaviors, and pain points in depth. They uncover the “why” behind user actions, confirm or challenge assumptions, and ensure that design decisions are driven by real human insights rather than guesswork.

This process leads to more accurate, user-centered solutions.

Interviewing users is a very effective way to build products that solve people’s problems. It can be used in different ways during a product’s lifecycle. Let’s see how user interviews can help us gain insights and make better decisions during the Discovery, Introduction, Growth, and Maturity phases of product development:

• Discovery — At this stage, we work on the product concept and conduct many user interviews to find out what the users are struggling with. At the end of this stage, we will have a clear concept to work on. We’ll develop our user persona (the target audience) and a mapped user journey that outlines the user’s main pain points
• Introduction — We’ve launched the first version of the product, but it still has fewer users and low sales. We will conduct user interviews to find out if the solution fits users’ needs to improve the product and increase users’ adaption. These interviews often involve usability tests to identify actual problems with the product and determine if the solutions are effective. This process improves the concept by creating more precise user personas, user journey maps, and having ideas on how to improve the solutions
• Growth — As the product grows in users and sales, we will use user interviews to identify additional user needs. For example, if our product is a video recorder, we may consider adding functionalities like AI editing, screen sharing, or animations. These interviews will help us discover new features to develop and improve existing solutions
• Maturity — At the maturity stage, our product is stable with a healthy revenue and solid user base. At this point, we will use interviews to continue improving the product and developing new products for the company. This will offer users a suite of solutions. For example, if we have a video editor, we may develop an app product for creating B-roll easily, allowing users to produce visuals more easily to add to their videos. This approach is like creating another product that supports the company’s existing products

The limitations of user interviews

Although user interviews are great, they also have their limitations. Below is a list of points to consider when conducting them:

Factor	Points to consider
Potential misalignment with objective truth or reality	People often perform tasks automatically or forget what they did in the moment Users may talk inaccurately about something they did, especially when describing something that happened a long time ago Conducting interviews in a vacuum can take participants out of the real feeling when they have a problem or while using the product
Time and resource constraints	Conducting many interviews can be expensive and time-consuming Scheduling an interview is difficult because participants are busy
Interviewee-held biases	Factors like response biases and the Hawthorne effect Sometimes participants answer with information they think the interviewer wants to hear
Interviewer-caused biases	Allowing more than one person to interview a user (the other is a note-taker) can make them uncomfortable and affect their response The body language and tone of the person conducting the interview can affect the answers of the participants
Potential for miscommunication	Participants who are not open to sharing knowledge and try to answer just yes or no People may consider critical information to be irrelevant and not share it in an interview, or critical details may be lost in communication

Types of user interviews

To conduct an effective interview, we must consider the various types available to choose the most effective one for our needs.

Here are the different types of interviews and their purposes:

Interview types	Description	When to use each
Onsite vs. remote interviews	You can conduct the interview in person, inviting the participant to a laboratory or your office, or you can do it online.	In-person interviews allow you to observe nonverbal information such as body language Remote interviews are best when you need to recruit participants from various locations, don’t have an on-site location to invite them to, or have time or resource constraints
Structured, semi-structured, and unstructured	A structured method has a full script of questions, while a more flexible semi-structured interview combines scripted questions with open conversation. If you prefer, you can conduct an unstructured interview, which involves free talking without a script.	Choose: A structured interview for consistent answers to clear questions relevant to your research An unstructured interview for a free-flowing conversation A semi-structured interview for a nice balance of both
Generative vs. contextual	In a generative interview, you talk to the user in a place where they are not doing their actual work, like in your office. In a contextual interview, you interview them in the place where they use your product.	Generative interviews are more open-ended, allowing you to better understand the user rather than seeing how they interact with your product Contextual interviews give you more specific information since you can see how they work with the product or interact with others
One-on-one vs. group	You can speak to one user at a time or conduct a group interview with multiple participants at the same time.	A one-to-one interview lets you dig deep into a single user’s thoughts and experiences A group gives you the opportunity to observe interactions between people and facilitate an open conversation about the questions you ask

User interviews vs. usability testing, sales meetings, feature feedback meetings

We can indeed gain insights from every conversation we have with a user. But rather than a simple conversation we have along the way, an interview is a structured process we do during the UX research process with a clear objective: to know the user and their needs better.

On the other hand, a user interview is not the same as a sales meeting, features feedback meeting, or usability testing. Let’s take a closer look at the important differences:

	User interview	Usability testing	Sales meeting	Feature feedback
Purpose	To learn more about your users and their needs and pain points	To check if the user can easily interact with a design, see if anything doesn’t work, and why	To showcase your product to potential customers and get to know their purchasing needs.	Get honest feedback from users through surveys, online comments, and information provided by customer success teams.
Intent	Attitudinal	Behavioral	Commercial	Evaluative
Stage	Any stage, but crucial during discovery	Testing	Late funnel	Post-launch or planning
Participants	Product managers and/or designers, users; sometimes sales reps	Product managers and/or designers, users	Sales reps, potential customers	Product managers and/or designers, stakeholders
Outcomes	Deep insights into user needs and pain points enable informed decisions on future features and roadmap priorities.	Insights to fine-tune the design (UX and UI)	Revenue generation or deal progression	New insights and ideas about the product to inform decisions and prioritize work effectively.

Step-by-step guide to conducting effective user interviews

1. Setting interview goals

Before conducting a user interview, it’s important to set clear goals. You need to write down your objectives for the interview. You usually have three to five goals, but if you have more than five, your objectives need to be more focused.

For instance, if you have a website that sells shoes, your goals could be:

1. Learn how people buy shoes online
2. Learn why people like/dislike buying shoes online
3. Learn why people abandon carts with products in them

Take the time to build this part well because if it’s done right, all the other parts will be easier.

2. Finding and inviting interviewees

For accurate results, choose three to eight users (with five being optimal) who are relevant to your research. For example, if you have an online store that sells running shoes, search for runners — interviewees who are more likely to accurately represent real customers.

Finding people to interview can be tricky, but here are some tips:

• Email existing users and ask if they’d like to participate. The customer success or sales team can assist, as they interact with users daily
• Search forums and social media for communities related to your topic and ask them to participate
• Utilize your network to find people to interview
• Use personal connections or introductions to find users for interviews, as this increases the chances of their participation compared to cold emails
• Use email templates to streamline the process and respond promptly to their emails to maintain a successful relationship

When you first connect with a user, send an email introducing yourself and explaining the interview’s purpose. Follow up with another email detailing the interview process and scheduling a time. Finally, send a thank-you email to the candidate.

3. Preparing your script

A clear script with questions is essential to a successful interview. The script should have four sections:

Introduction: Kicking off the interview

This is the first step of the interview. It will help you establish trust and make the participant comfortable:

• Introduce yourself and the notetaker
• Clearly explain the purpose of the interview and that the session is not a test
• Request recording permission in advance (preferably in writing)
• Before moving to the next step, give time for participant questions

Here’s an example:

Hello [Name of Interviewee]. Thank you for joining our research study. I’m [Name of Principal Researcher], the moderator, and this is [Name of Notetaker], who will help take notes.

We’re UX designers from [company name], working on [application purpose].

We’ll ask you some questions to understand your needs and improve the user experience. Your honest feedback is valuable, and there are no right or wrong answers.

Any questions before we start?

Ice breaker: Getting to know the interviewee

Make small talk with the user, letting conversation flow naturally, before starting the main part. This helps the participant relax and feel more open to sharing honest insights:

• Ask 3–5 simple, non-intimidating questions
• Keep the tone friendly and casual
• Relate to their background or interests

Examples of questions you could ask include:

• Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your professional background?
• When did you first become interested in the field you work in now?
• In your current role or responsibilities, what do you enjoy most?
• When you have free time, what do you like to do?
• How does your typical day look?

Main interview questions

Get key insights by asking structured, open-ended questions that align with research goals. Encourage your interviewee to expand on their answers to get as many detailed insights as possible:

• Prepare 20–25 questions but ask 10–12
• Start broad, then dig deeper
• Avoid leading and vague questions
• Use open-ended questions
• Follow up with probing questions

Some additional tips include:

• Avoid leading questions — Instead of, “Which websites do you buy running shoes from?”, ask, “Where do you buy your running shoes?”
• Avoid vague questions — Instead of, “What do you think of the website?”, ask, “How easy was it to find the shoes you wanted?”
• Use an open-ended approach — Instead of, “Do you buy shoes online?”, ask, “Can you tell me how you buy running shoes?”

Concluding the interview

Thank the interviewee and explain what you plan to do with the data. This provides one last chance for unexpected insights:

• Ask if they have any final questions and conclude the interview
• Allow the participant to share final thoughts
• End with a broad, open-ended question

A “magic” question is a good example of a broad, open-ended question to end with. For example, you could ask, “If you had a magic stick to help you choose your next running shoe, what would it do?”

4. Conducting the user interview

To get quality information from the interviewees, there are some key things you need to do during the interview:

Approach & mindset:

• Be calm and relaxed. Think of it as a conversation between two people
• The purpose of this session is to ask questions and get information from participants, so speak less and listen more. It is recommended that you speak 15 percent of the time and listen 85 percent of the time
• Don’t be discouraged if you receive any negative user feedback about the product. You can gain valuable insight from users’ complaints

Interview flow & adaptability:

• If you see that the user wants to talk, but you finish all the questions in the script, don’t be afraid to improvise. Getting more experience in user interviews will help you improvise better
• Occasionally, people talk little, and the call may feel silent. This is fine, and you can wait until the user continues to talk. However, you can break the silence if it takes a long time
• Search for pain points because this is where you can start finding solutions for the user
• When conducting a remote interview, turn on the automatic captioning feature (available in many online call apps). This will help you understand people better, especially if they speak a foreign language or have a strong accent

Recording & documentation:

• As far as my experience shows, recording the interview and watching it again is the best way to ensure you get everything
• If you do not have a notetaker, record the session and transcribe it, so you have all the information and can refer back to it later

Verbal & non-verbal communication:

• Use neutral responses like “I understand,” “Okay,” or “I see” to show you’re engaged
• Match your speaking speed, volume, and intonation to the participants
• Keep eye contact to show interest
• To appear approachable, use an open posture (uncrossed arms, slight forward lean)
• Smile from time to time to create a welcoming feeling

5. Organizing and analyzing your information

Once you’re finished conducting user interviews, it’s time to organize all the information you collected. You can summarize each interview and the main points from them, then create a report to share with product managers and developers.

If necessary, create a user persona and a user journey map. These resources will inform all team members about users and their needs, helping the team prioritize which solutions it needs to develop.

All reports should be concise and to the point. Writing a long document is easy, but to effectively communicate the results, focus on key points rather than including every single detail. For example, rather than including full interview transcriptions, you can include links to interview summaries if team members need more explanation.

I recommend using an AI tool for this step. You can ask it to summarize the interview and write it in the format you want, like bullet points or short sentences.

When reviewing interview data, if you feel there’s something important you missed or didn’t understand, you can follow up with the interviewee. This isn’t very common, but is sometimes necessary to write a thorough report.

Tips for writing user interview questions

Prepare and ask the right number of questions

Asking 10–12 questions will give you good results, but you should prepare 20–25 questions. Some people are difficult to get information from, so more questions will give you a backup.

Align questions with interview goals

Check the questions after writing them to make sure they help you achieve the interview’s goal. This ensures your interview stays focused on the interview goal.

Order the questions strategically and make your script easy to skim

Think about what you want to ask at the beginning versus at the end. Organize your script with section headings, subtitles, and bold typography so you can find the information quickly.

Avoid leading questions and vague questions

Leading questions prompt interviewees to respond a certain way. They can lead to biased or inaccurate answers, as well as making the participant feel uncomfortable.

For example, an online store selling running shoes asking, “Can you tell me which website you bought running shoes from?” assumes the user bought them online, which might not be true. A better question would be, “Where do you buy your running shoes?”

Similarly, vague questions can frustrate the participant and often lead to unclear or confusing responses. Ask clear, specific questions instead.

Instead of a vague question like, “What do you think of the shopping experience on the website?”, you could ask more specific questions such as:

• How easy or difficult was it to find the running shoes you wanted on the website?
• Which factors influenced your decision to buy or not buy shoes?

Start with a big question, then ask follow-up questions

To dig deeper step by step, start with a big question and then ask related questions. This technique will make the discussion more focused and manageable.

You can ask, for example:

• “Can you tell me when was the last time you bought new running shoes?”

Then ask subquestions like:

• How long did it take you to choose the shoes?
• Where did you find them?
• What made you choose this brand/shoe?

Likewise, if you see participants sharing valuable information, explore further by asking them to give more details. You can use questions like:

• Could you tell me more?
• How did you feel at that moment?
• What was the most challenging part?

Add scenarios to the questions

Incorporating scenarios can put participants in the moment or place where they use the product, leading to more accurate answers. For example, if you are interviewing an employee about the application they use to manage clients, you can ask:

“Imagine you’re at the office now working on a task, and your manager asks you to send the list of customers who bought most of the company’s products last month. What do you do?”

Request examples, lean into feelings, and don’t shy away from silence

If the participants can give you specific examples of their experiences, you can understand them better. Whenever you need them, ask for them.

Add some questions about the participant’s emotions and feelings at different moments. This can often tell you more about the user’s actions.

It is okay if silence happens during the interview. It gives the user time to think and answer accurately. It’s part of the interview process, so don’t be afraid of it.

Ask open questions

Open questions are better than closed questions because they allow participants to express their thoughts and give you more insight. The answer to a closed-ended question can only be yes or no, so it won’t help us find the information we need.

Examples:

• Closed question: “Do you buy running shoes online?”
• Open question: “Can you tell me how you buy running shoes?”

Closed questions can be helpful in some situations. Sometimes we need to ask a closed question, and based on the answer, we ask an open question. This helps you better understand how the user behaves. For example, you can ask the user, “Do you buy running shoes online?”

If the answer is YES, you may ask:

• Why do you buy shoes online?
• Where do you buy shoes online?

If the answer is NO, you may ask:

• Why do you not buy shoes online?
• Where do you buy your shoes?

At the end of the interview, you can ask a very open “magic” question to find out more about the user. This is a great technique to gain insights you hadn’t thought about. For example, “If you had a magic wand that could help you choose your next running shoe, what would it do?”

Pro tip: Use an AI tool like ChatGPT to help you write the script. Here is a prompt template to generate the script more quickly. All you have to do to customize this prompt template is write in your research goal and any relevant information about your product.

User interview pitfalls to avoid

Here are some pitfalls to avoid when conducting a user interview. Use them as a checklist to avoid these mistakes:

• Prepare goals for the interview. Without them, interviews can become unfocused
• Allow the participants to speak and do not interrupt them while they speak. Cutting them off when they’re talking can prevent them from sharing insights
• Don’t ask too many questions at once. Do it one by one to focus on the interview
• “Listen” to the participant’s body language and don’t ignore it. For example, people will not tell you if they are uncomfortable, but their body language will
• During the interview, it’s okay to improvise questions or skip questions so the interview feels more natural. You shouldn’t read the script like a computer
• Clarify responses if needed. Ask the participant for clarification if you don’t understand what they are saying
• Use simple language and words to help the person understand what you’re asking
• Test before conducting an interview. Practice with a person you feel comfortable with before making the interview, so you can prepare better

Helpful user interview tools and resources

There are many tools that can help you conduct a user interview, and it depends on your needs. While small teams use basic tools, big design teams often use more advanced tools to get insights. Let’s check out some tools for various aspects of the user interview process.

• Arranging a meeting — Arranging a meeting can be complex due to different time zones and availability, so it’s helpful to use tools like Calendly or TidyCal. These tools allow you to provide your agenda, and the interviewee can select a time that fits them
• Finding participants — Searching for participants can take time if you don’t have a pool of users. You can use tools like User Testing and User Interviews to find participants
• Writing the script — Writing a user interview script can be pretty time-consuming. To save time, you can use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini. Alternatively, there are tools like Maze that have specific AI tools to create a script for the interview
• Conducting the interview — Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams are commonly used tools for user interviews. These tools can also automatically transcribe meetings, eliminating note-taking during interviews. You can review the transcription afterward, take notes as needed, and summarize the info with AI tools
• After the interview — After the interview, you’ll want to extract insights from it. You can use ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini for this purpose. However, ensure that the information remains secure and is not added to the “brain” of these models. For a more professional and streamlined approach, consider tools like UXtweak, Maze, and Looppanel. These tools offer advanced features for summarizing and analyzing information with AI, allowing you to focus on insights rather than organizing the data

After, or between, user interviews, it may also be helpful to run user interview debriefs. Research debriefs will help you wrap up interviews and prepare for the next one, ensuring you gain insights efficiently and avoid wasting time and resources.

Conclusion

User interviews are a crucial part of the product design process, as they allow designers to gain insight into the users’ needs, behaviors, and motivations. This article reviewed all the details you need to know to perform user interviews effectively.

We started by discussing what qualitative and quantitative research is and how user interviews fit into these categories. We also looked at when to conduct user interviews and how to prepare for them. This included setting clear goals, identifying users to interview, and deciding between onsite and online interviews.

We also discussed how to create a script for the interview. If you’re short on time, an AI tool like ChatGPT can help you write a script quickly, especially if you use this customizable prompt template to get started quickly.

Next, we saw tips for conducting a smooth interview, and finally, we discussed what to do with the data you collected.

Featured image source: IconScout