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Introduction to Interviewing Users
2:58 with Tomer SharonInterviewing users or potential users is one of the most useful techniques to gain insights about people and their needs.
[MUSIC]
0:00
Interviewing users or potential users, is
one of the most useful techniques for
0:04
gaining insights about people and their
needs.
0:09
An interview is a method for gathering
information, through direct dialogue.
0:12
Through this dialogue, product teams can
capture feelings, desires, struggles,
0:17
delights, and opinions of their audience
and potential audience.
0:22
The primary benefits of interviewing users
are, direct contact.
0:28
Interviewers interact with interviewees,
in person without using any tool,
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service, or product to bypass direct
communication.
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Communicating directly with interviewees,
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significantly reduces chances of
misinterpreting collected data.
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Challenges perceptions.
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Interviewing people, rather than making
assumptions about them is powerful.
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It creates an unimaginable impact, on
product stakeholders, and changes their
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beliefs, assumptions and perceptions about
what people need, and what motivates them.
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Deepens empathy.
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Interviewing creates understanding and
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human relatedness, in levels that cannot
be achieved in any other way.
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It helps individuals, teams, and
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organizations add a human aspect to what
they do.
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Builds credibility.
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Data collected in interviews, supports
quantitative data gathered in other ways,
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such as analytics.
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It helps explain it, helps you understand
its logic, and
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provides a solid basis for coming to the
right conclusions.
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That said, interviewing people carries one
great caveat.
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That caveat is called rationalization.
1:43
Rationalization is a psychological
phenomenon, in which we humans,
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change the reality we tell others about.
1:51
We do that not because we are liars, or
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have any bad intentions, the other way
around.
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We humans want to be perceived as good,
friendly, and
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helpful, we want to be loved.
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Therefore when an interviewer is asking us
about something that happened to us,
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we will change reality a little bit,
sometimes a lot more than a little bit.
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Exactly because of that, we want to help,
we want the person who
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asked us to feel good about the data we
provide him or her with, so we lie.
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This doesn't happen to some of us, or to
people with certain personality traits, or
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from different social classes, this is
human nature.
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The bad news is that,
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as an interviewer, you can never tell when
rationalization is happening.
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There's no way to tell if someone is
telling you stories about
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things that kind of happened, or never
happened.
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Later on,
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I'll teach you one technique that can help
you prevent rationalization but remember,
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you'll never be able to identify it, when
it happens right in front of your eyes.
2:53
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