Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll
Preview
Start a free Courses trial
to watch this video
Preparing for Interviews
2:19 with Tomer SharonThere are three things you need to do to prepare for interviewing people: Identify a Topic Prepare Questions Construct the Interview
This video doesn't have any notes.
Related Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign upRelated Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign up
There are three things you need to do to
prepare for interviewing people.
0:00
One, identify a topic, your interview
should have a theme,
0:04
a focus topic you wish to discuss.
0:09
This topic is derived from the reason you
wish to conduct interviews.
0:12
If the reason was understanding if people
need the note-taking iPad app,
0:16
then there you have it, your topic is just
that.
0:20
Make sure to identify topic, don't skip
this part.
0:23
Otherwise you might waste a lot of
interviewing time on
0:27
unrelated things collecting data you don't
need.
0:30
Two, prepare questions, your goal while
interviewing users is to gather
0:33
stories about their recent behavior that
on one hand will provide you with insights
0:39
into their needs, and on the other hand
will uncover pain points they might have.
0:44
Add to that interviewees personality that
affects how much they talk or
0:49
don't talk, people are different than one
another,
0:53
no one interview will look the same as the
other.
0:56
Therefore, you need to have in your
backpack two types of questions,
1:00
regular and follow up questions.
1:04
We'll discuss these types later on.
1:06
Three, construct the interview.
1:09
You'll research participants need to feel
comfortable answering your questions.
1:12
One of their concerns before the interview
is that they wouldn't be able to
1:17
answer your questions.
1:21
Therefore, you need to plan for easy
questions first, then ask harder ones.
1:22
Ask a couple of easy questions you're not
even sure you'll learn anything from,
1:29
that's fine.
1:33
Your goal for the first few minutes of the
interview is to
1:34
make interviewees feel they can easily
answer your questions.
1:37
For example, ask them what was the last
thing they searched on Google, or
1:40
when was it or what was the reason they
recently used their smart phone,
1:45
then move on to asking harder questions,
ones you hope to learn from.
1:49
Plan for more questions than you think you
have time for,
1:54
some people talk fast some have very
lengthy answers make sure your
1:58
question list is organized by importance
except for easy opening questions.
2:02
Now, let's look at a bunch of possible
questions you
2:09
might ask during interviews with a goal to
uncover users' stories and needs.
2:12
You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.
Sign upYou need to sign up for Treehouse in order to set up Workspace
Sign up