User Interview and Product Design

UIUXBusinessThe Pros and Cons of User Interviews

Designer - 2024 - Three Philosophers

User interviews can be instrumental in uncovering the strengths and weaknesses of a product, and they often play a vital role in shaping prototypes. However, the time and resources invested do not always guarantee a meaningful return. From the perspective of product growth, we must critically evaluate the necessity and the appropriate timing of these interviews.

A Single Tool Among Many: Exploring User Psychology

Methods for visualizing user pain points and 'Aha! moments' are diverse—ranging from meticulous user story mapping to various persona models and heuristic evaluations. While the potential for user interviews to drive growth has made the method a modern trend, in practice, several critical issues continue to cast a shadow over its actual effectiveness.

The Evolution of User Pain

The insights gleaned from user interviews span a broad spectrum—joy, hope, and pain. Consider the experience of a hospital visit: an elderly patient who frequents a large hospital multiple times a week may develop a certain tolerance, learning to navigate and dismiss the inherent stresses of the process. In contrast, an average person who visits only a few times a year will perceive those same stresses in their rawest form, often evaluating the "pain" with intense severity.

This variance is critical; for instance, in the currently trending SaaS industry, the methods for abstract discernment and achieving product-market fit differ significantly between B2C and B2B sectors, depending on how these thresholds of tolerance are managed.

For these reasons, when extracting user insights, it is crucial to control the balance between user tolerance and the necessary strategic measures—especially within the constraints of time and budget. In his book Interviewing Users, Steve Portigal notes a reality that complicates user research: what designers and engineers perceive as a 'pain point' may not actually be felt as painful by the users themselves.

This aligns with Herbert Simon’s 1956 concept of 'satisficing'—a portmanteau of satisfy and suffice. It describes how people tend to seek options that are 'good enough' rather than optimal; they are surprisingly tolerant of mediocre solutions, even if they aren't 100% satisfied. Understanding this is vital for 'Total Optimization' in business, as it directly impacts the speed of growth and the precision with which we identify core challenges.

When Interviews Truly Yield Value

Gesturing toward the cluttered shelves in a living room, Portigal touches upon a core truth of user psychology: "Frankly, I find every research project to be 'good enough.' Disorganized MP3 files on a desktop, food container lids that don't quite fit, or tangled cables that are just a few inches too short—these are all examples of 'satisficing,' the act of settling for a 'good enough' level of satisfaction.

In other words, people often find the effort required to solve a problem more bothersome than the pain the problem itself causes. What you perceive as a 'need' may, for the customer, be something perfectly tolerable. Do they want a container that seals perfectly? Of course. But will they invest the actual time and effort to ensure it does? Probably not.

User interviews are most likely to yield significant value in the following situations and stages:

Price of Rote Framework Adherence: From the Design Frontlines

The three points mentioned above are quoted from Portigal’s work, but the ability to discern when user interviews will be effective—and when they will not—is absolutely critical.

In my experience, organizations with poor UI/UX design quality almost invariably fail to design effective interviews as well. Amidst the HCD (Human-Centered Design) boom, there is a trend to defer everything to the user. However, a solid hypothesis is a prerequisite, and since the hypothesis itself depends on one's fundamental design capability, a weak foundation leads to a vicious cycle: vague interviews, vague analysis, and ultimately, a vague product. It must be noted that this is a methodology (among the many currently trendy frameworks) that risks significant loss if handled poorly.

What we seek from user interviews is objectivity. Ideally, we want to discover a 'shining insight' that transcends a designer’s intuition or existing departmental data. To be frank, I often find that younger staff struggle to craft interview plans that surpass my own empirical rules.

One must think deeply about cross-departmental synergies and the core essence of what makes a product sell. Only after clarifying which specific insights or needs to extract should one proceed to the actual interview.

The Etiquette of Gaining Trust

Once the project is approved and the interviews begin, what "etiquette" is most effective for building rapport with your participants?
This month, during my second visit to a certain hair salon in Harajuku, the young stylist greeted me with such genuine, lighthearted warmth that our conversation flowed effortlessly. The simple realization that "they trusted me enough to return" can be enough to make someone open up from the bottom of their heart. When people experience joy or a pleasant surprise, they feel an immediate sense of affinity, which eventually matures into trust.

While factors like status, appearance, and personality play their parts, biases are inevitably stripped away in the face of sincere connection. Never forget that a user interview is, above all, a deeply human endeavor.

Coda: A Method Requiring Meticulous Care

In essence, user interviews are a "primitive" tool that has existed since time immemorial, yet they function as a highly volatile framework that indiscriminately unearths both gold and dross.

Relying on the excuse that 'the users said it was good, so our design is correct' is a state of sheer dysfunction. Allowing half-baked information to seep into an organization is a disastrous path to 'climbing' toward product success. The resulting losses far exceed the mere cost of the research itself. I have witnessed cases where individuals lacking business or design acumen circulate such shallow data purely for the sake of 'self-preservation.

The proper approach is to first entrust the strategy to seasoned experts using established methodologies. Once each touchpoint is clearly defined, the team should—together with these experts—pinpoint which areas require deeper exploration. (In some cases, the correct answer is simply "no interview needed.") Finally, by meticulously evaluating the results and using them to validate hypotheses, those insights should be integrated into the backlog.
To be clear, by "experts," I do not mean "interviewing masters," but rather professionals with deep expertise across relevant departments—the true masters of their respective domains.