Gather user feedback to help design your solution
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.
To use Mural’s user interviews template, follow the steps outlined below with your team.
Use the Observations section of the template to brainstorm and record any observations they may have about the topic of your user research.
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.
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.
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.
To make the most of the Mural user interview template, you should:
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.
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:
Experience and behavior:
Pain points and needs:
Feedback and improvement:
Future vision:
Remember to adapt these questions to suit your specific context and goals.
Structuring user interview questions helps ensure a smooth and coherent conversation. Here's a suggested structure for user interview questions:
Warm-up and rapport-building questions
Start with easy, non-intrusive questions to put the participant at ease and establish rapport. These questions can be about their background, interests, or general experiences related to the topic.
Context-setting questions
Transition to questions that gather contextual information about the participant's experience, behaviors, or activities related to the problem you're addressing. These questions help set the stage and provide a foundation for more specific inquiries.
Open-ended exploratory questions
Ask open-ended questions that encourage participants to share their thoughts, opinions, and experiences related to the problem. These questions should allow participants to freely express themselves without leading or biasing their responses.
Probing and follow-up questions
Dig deeper into specific areas by asking probing questions that seek more detailed explanations, examples, or clarifications. These questions help uncover underlying motivations, emotions, or insights that may not have been initially apparent.
Scenario-based questions
Present hypothetical scenarios or use cases to understand how participants might approach or react to specific situations related to the problem. This helps uncover user preferences, decision-making processes, and potential pain points.
Wrap-up and reflection questions
End the interview with reflective questions that allow participants to summarize their overall thoughts or provide any additional insights they feel are relevant.
Remember to listen actively during the interview, allowing participants to fully express their responses before moving on to the next question. Adapt the structure as needed based on the flow of the conversation and participant's responses.
Mural is the only platform that offers both a shared workspace and training on the LUMA System™, a practical way to collaborate that anyone can learn and apply.