Simple interview template

A simple-but-useful structure for conducting any interview

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Use this template to structure interviews and generate a wealth of data to help you design the best solution possible.

Before you can design a solution, you must first understand the problem by gathering information from your stakeholders, potential users, and others who work in the environment you’re investigating.

The user interviews template helps you:

Gather meaningful feedback
Better understand and empathize with user needs
Translate feedback into action items
Get team-wide alignment and buy-in for research-based solutions

How to use the user interviews template

To use Mural’s user interviews template, follow the steps outlined below with your team.

Step 1: Record your observations

Use the Observations section of the template to brainstorm and record any observations they may have about the topic of your user research.

Step 2: Assign an interviewer and a notetaker from your team for each interview

Assign one person to be the interviewer, and one to be the notetaker for each of your user interviews. This helps avoid leading the user to any specific answers and keep your interview open-ended.

Step 3: Conduct your research interviews

Once you have all your assignments set, have your team brainstorm the questions to ask, and conduct interviews. Make sure that your questions are open-ended (not simple yes or no questions), and make room for probing questions to follow up and get more granular insights. Use color-coded sticky notes to record the questions and any notes from the user interviews for further analysis later in the process.

Step 4: Analyze and review your key takeaways

Once you’ve conducted all your interviews, look for commonalities or themes across the user interviews as well as your team’s observations. This will help inform next steps and make the process of building action items straightforward.

Tips for running user interview research

To make the most of the Mural user interview template, you should:

Make sure that everyone participates in brainstorming and contributes their observations regarding the subject of your research — the broader the engagement, the more likely you are to be able to identify important themes
Use Mural’s easy sharing features and flexible permissions to get everyone into the same digital space and contributing in real time, or asynchronously
Once you’ve finished your interviews and conducted your analysis, create action items based on the themes you’ve identified and get broad alignment and buy-in for your solutions

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Simple interview template FAQs

How do I conduct user research interviews?

Designing user interviews involves structuring a set of questions and guidelines that will help you conduct consistent and effective user interviews. Here's a step-by-step process to create an interview template:

Define your goals: Determine the purpose and objectives of your user interviews. What specific information or insights are you seeking to gather?
Identify key topics: Identify the main areas or topics you want to explore during the interview. This could include user demographics, behaviors, motivations, pain points, and needs.
Develop a question framework: Create a set of core questions that will guide the conversation. These questions should be open-ended and encourage participants to share their thoughts, experiences, and emotions.
Add probing and follow-up questions: Consider additional questions that can dig deeper into specific areas or clarify ambiguous responses. These probing questions can help uncover valuable insights.
Incorporate a mix of question types: Include a variety of question types such as demographic questions, experience-based questions, scenario-based questions, and opinion-based questions. This mix will provide a well-rounded view of the user's perspective.
Consider the flow and order: Organize the questions in a logical flow that maintains a conversational rhythm. Start with warm-up questions to build rapport and gradually move towards more in-depth inquiries.
Include instructions and prompts: Provide clear instructions and prompts for interviewers to guide the interview process effectively. This helps ensure consistency across different interviewers and sessions.
Review and iterate: Test the interview template with a few users or colleagues and gather feedback. Iterate and refine the questions based on the insights gained from these test interviews.

What are good questions to ask in a user interview?

When conducting user interviews, it's important to ask questions that elicit meaningful and actionable responses. Here are some good questions to include in your user interview template:

Introduction and background:

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
How would you describe your role/job/industry?

Experience and behavior:

How do you currently solve the problem our product aims to address?
Can you walk me through your typical workflow or process related to this problem?
What challenges do you encounter when performing these tasks?

Pain points and needs:

What are the biggest challenges or frustrations you face in relation to [the problem]?
What would make your life easier when dealing with [the problem]?
Are there any specific features or functionalities you wish our product had?

Feedback and improvement: