Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights

Just finished reading "Interviewing Users" by Steve Portigal and wanted to share my praise! As I spent the last year getting more comfortable in my role and speaking with users, this was the perfect book to read. I found the book to be incredibly practical. “Interviewing Users” was extremely descriptive regarding the soft skills of interviewing, working with others in the field, and conducting research for business impact. I particularly enjoyed the second chapter ‘A framework for interviewing’. Steve goes into delicate stages of the interview here. Such as the “tipping point” (when the interview transitions from a question-answer, to a question-story), effective rapport building through listening, and managing silences. These are all ways to make this unnatural experience of interviewing someone into a comfortable experience, encouraging them to be the experts. Overall, I would highly recommend this book to people conducting any type of qualitative research. Whether it is for UX or Market research, the book covers how to optimize the flow of the interview and all the things that come before and after. Plus there are small excerpts from different professionals in the field sharing their personal experiences.

For the past several years I've been recommending this book to developers and other non-design contributors of open source projects, each time I hear "I'd like to speak to users." More recently, with PMs from the F1000 company I recently left. Open source and non-profit tech is famously under-funded; so much so, that UX is often left off the table. And yet the caring, invested folks building that tech still want to build what users really need and want. So without any understanding of the complexities involved in credibly endeavoring user research, they go out and just ask users what they need. Similarly, PMs are highly motivated to engage with customers to learn about their needs—and most of us know that asking the wrong questions the right way, or the right questions the wrong way, leads teams into poor hypothesis. Do I wish every project could have a developed, seasoned UX researcher to guide everything? Absolutely! The sad reality is, that just isn't always possible. Even when it is possible, "speaking to users" is something everyone wants to do—and it's not my job to be a gatekeeper of that fun. I'm not even a "real" researcher, but a designer who's had to do their own research by necessity. I first discovered this book, to help me fill that gap—and I've gone on to recommend it to others, for the same purpose. I still like to re-read this book to ensure I'm keeping the right things in the right priority. This book has been incredibly helpful for me as a UX practitioner, and for the cross-functional folks I've worked with. I look forward to continuing to bring cross-functional partners into UX research efforts, with this gem of a tool! 🙏🏻 P.S.: It also make a great case for why dedicated UX researchers should be brought onto projects. Everyone wins, the more we learn!

I finished reading the book on interviews last week, and it was great. I did find the style of using stories interesting, and even if bullet points were not utilized as much as I would like, I felt like the book gave a lot of insights into the thinking that goes into interviews. Also, it provided materials for further exploration, which is a great thing, especially for an early-stage researcher. Great book! 👏🏾

(4.5 stars) I would say that the only knock on this book upfront that it is heavily focussed on interviewing on-site and in the field, as someone that is not a full time user researcher, our team doesn't have the ability to do such things. With that being said, this was a get primer on interviewing techniques and a run through on typical protocol of what Steve Portigal uses for his own consulting firm. The writing is witty and makes the subject even more engaging. Of course, through telling stories, we build empathy for the processes and failures told. In terms of the physical copy vs the digital copy, I used err on the side of Kindle eBooks due to the easy of purchasing and the price, but I purchased the hard copy so I can share with my design team at work. Great read and highly recommended.

Learning to ask questions, and learning to really listen to people and hear what’s important to them is such a crucial skill for designers, researchers, and product managers today. Yes, it’s especially important for design research, but also in other scenarios—talking to stakeholders, discussions with clients, arguments with one’s significant other, you name it. Learning how to listen—and to truly hear the intent behind what is said—is a critical skill that the best designers excel at. This is not a gift you either have or you don’t, it’s a competency you can develop with the very thorough guidance in this book. It covers the mechanics of a good interview, how to get the information you need without biasing the whole thing, and all the soft skills necessary to execute research. This combo of hard and soft skills gives newbies the confidence in their skills to actually go out and TALK to people, instead of sandbagging and avoiding the whole thing. I’ve recommended it to all my students, and recommend this book to anyone looking to ask better questions and have more informative conversations.

I describe Steve Portigal‘s book, Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights, as a UXR bible for my research mentees.

A stand-out book. The book certainly offers expert advise on how to think about, prepare and conduct interviews that will lead to most useful insights. But what makes this book unique is Steve's gift to discuss the exceptions while outlining the norms. Not everyone confronts such outliers let alone resolves it. For example, he talks about how to not offend by refusing hospitality in a customer's premise. He expands beautifully that while it is a professional pursuit for the researcher it feels like a social call for the customer. It is important to empathize with that for the customer to feel at ease. Certainly makes you wiser whatever be your expertise in user research. A worthy read and re-read!

Great topic but three stars for the publisher not doing research on font sizes used in print books. The fonts in this series of books are super small, perhaps 8 pts. It is an absolute chore to read each page. If you are considering getting this in Kindle, and you can increase the text font size there, do Kindle.

There aren't a lot of people in the world who have a deeper knowledge of user research than Steve Portigal. And those who have it almost certainly aren't as good at writing. On the face of it the book is a structured how-to for people planning and executing field interviews. So if you are someone starting out in user research or user experience design I'd highly recommend it because it will acquaint you with many important principles - and give you you some pointers and perspectives from someone with deep experience. But there's also a lot for people with more years under their belt. I've been conducting interviews and managing research teams for over a decade and the book gave me lots to reflect on and talk to my colleagues about. We'll be doing some things differently as a result of reading the book. At a more general level I found Interviewing Users refreshing because, in a time where lean and agile practices sometimes put pressure on us to hack through user insight part of user experience design, the book reminds us that interviewing is a craft, and that the quality and care you put into it will make for better design outcomes. As well as being a responsibility, interviewing users is a great pleasure and a privilege: shining a light into corners of human behaviour and understanding. I'm sure the book will encourage new people into this important field.

I chose this book having met Steve Portigal at UX Hong Kong a few years back. I was looking forward to learning about how to uncover real insights from masses of interview data. I have to say, I was a little disappointed. It's a great book in terms of helping you plan and execute the interview stage. He's clearly very experienced, it has good examples, and I feel that it has improved my technique. However there was comparatively little on how to analyse and extract the key themes from the data. It's still worth buying for the interview part, but I'm holding out for a sequel where he goes into more detail on the most crucial part.

The value one can get from this book depends on their years of experience and types of interviews they want to do. For someone who is new to the game and looking to interview users in person, this would be helpful. Beyond this, the insights are limited. I believe there is also a dedicated book from the publisher for remote interviews. Overall, the big price point on this book is to cover the fancy paper and coloured images. The images which add even less value.

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