A simple guide for conducting remote qualitative research interviews
Hi!👋 I’m sharing a simple guide for the process I use to uncover customer insights for my design projects. This simple guide helps me recruit people and conduct remote customer research interviews confidently and structured.
👉 Info about the difference between qualitative & quantitative research
Why conduct Customer Interviews?
Talking with potential customers or existing customers is extremely valuable. Capturing insights and facts before going into solution mode will help you and the team make informed decisions.
The interviews will reveal insights into the customer interests, behaviors, needs, feelings, pains, and motivations.
“You can’t design for people without understanding people” — Erika Hall
When to conduct Customer Interviews?
Conduct customer research interviews before starting a new project, a project without previous research or recent data. Use this method before running a Design Sprint or a Problem Framing workshop.
You can do interviews after product launch and at any point during your product life-cycle. This way, you’ll stay up to date with your customer’s behaviors and needs, and you’ll gain a better understanding of their relationship with your brand and product.
👉 For great results, use this method with other quantitative and qualitative research methods such as Surveys, Analytic Tools, A/B Testing, and Usability Testing Interviews.
Steps for creating a great research interview
The following guide is for a semistructured interview type. This approach allows you to capture patterns by collecting the same information from each interviewee and have an open conversation.
General directions:
- Use one Customer Persona per research goal
- Have a list of fixed questions that need to be answered by all participants
- Allow open conversations for each participant
- Keep the session no longer than 45 minutes
The entire process has 3 main steps that I will cover in more detail:
- Setting a research goal
- Recruiting people
- Preparing the interview script
🎯 Setting a research goal
The first step is to make sure your research has focus and a clear goal. Answer the following questions to help you define your research goal:
- Who is your target audience?
- What do you want to find out?
After you have your research goal defined, think about the assumptions you want to validate or invalidate.
Next, list the assumptions and define questions that need answers to validate or invalidate these assumptions.
👉 A clear research goal with a list of assumptions will help you create an interview script that uncovers insights needed for your research.
💪🏽 Recruiting participants
Before recruiting and selecting participants, define a Persona or a Proto-persona to guide your decision if you don’t have one already.
- Find 5–10 people that fit the targeted Persona and specific criteria
- Recruit people from your network, social media, an existing community, or actual customers — depending on your goal!
- Don’t recruit family or friends to avoid biases and being too nice 😇
- Give a small reward or a gift card to motivate them to participate
Scheduling sessions:
Communicate on email to keep track better and set the expectations upfront by explaining how the interview will unfold. Let people know what tools and devices they need during the upcoming session.
Schedule sessions using a tool like Calendly or SavyCal to make things easier for people to see your availability and schedule anytime.
📝 Preparing the interview script
Having a script prepared is very important. It helps for keeping structure and making sure to don’t miss any questions. Here are a couple of tips to help you create a great script.
Start your interview with an introduction:
- Introduce yourself
- Explain the purpose of the interview
- Inform about how the session will unfold and remind how long it takes
- Always ask for permission to record (if the case)
- Mention who will get access to the answers and the purpose of use
- Ask for any questions before getting started
👉 Before asking any research questions, connect with the interviewee by starting with a funny story or recent events. It will help them be more open and comfortable answering all the questions.
During the interview
When starting to ask questions, remember to listen actively and continue based on the received answers.
Try to avoid asking questions one after another as you have them listed, instead improvise and follow the natural flow of the conversation. Make sure you ask all the intended questions by the end of the session.
⭐️ Tips for successful results: ⭐️
- Use the script as a guide and build a natural conversation to make sure people don’t feel interrogated
- Focus on the conversation, not on asking the questions
- Start with a simple/neutral question to make people comfortable
- Use open-ended questions to allow people to give their answer
- Be objective and don’t lead people into giving answers that please you
- If you don’t understand the answer, ask the participant to repeat/clarify
- Avoid irrelevant discussions that are not related to your research goal
- Ask “Why?” to uncover the reason behind their feelings and actions
Examples of how to avoid leading participants:
❌ Your question: "Do you like this polished version better?"
✅ Your correct question: "What are your thoughts on this…?"
👉 Why: Avoid describing how things are supposed to be perceived. Make sure you get an honest answer without suggesting ideas to the participant.
Participant: “I don’t like shopping, but I do it every day! “
❌ Your answer: “Wow, that’s crazy!”
✅ Your correct answer: “Can you tell me more about your experience while shopping?”
👉 Why: Try to be neutral and block reactions that can change the participant’s frame of mind. Instead, be curious and dive deeper into their thoughts to reveal the why behind their actions and thoughts.
Use this free Miro template to capture your research results!✨ You can use it to capture and analyze customer interviews and user testing sessions from Design Sprints. Use it as part of your research process or in a workshop with your team. 👉 Capturing Research Results Template
👩💻 I’m Ileana Marcut, founder of Creative Glue Lab, a UX Design and Development studio focused on digital products and AI-native tools. Got something in mind? Reach out at ileana@creativegluelab.com.
