Finding Out What People Really Think Of Your Products And Services

To ensure you provide an excellent website experience, you need to find out what an actual real-life user’s experience is of your website, product, or service, and so on.

One way of doing this – and don’t forget, this will change from one project to another – is to interview real-life users in real-life situations.

This means getting a group of people and asking them for their opinion on your product, whilst they are actually using it. This information can be invaluable for a content marketing agency or a person in charge of your digital marketing efforts.

Sounds a tough call and it can be, which is why many companies employ people who are specialists in what is known as UX interviews. Be aware though that not everyone who puts this on their CV is a specialist of this kind. It takes more than a cup of tea and a biscuit to understand, process, and collect this kind of data from people.

For a start, you need to find customers who are willing to have their user experience measured and quantified. Projects of this kind can work in all kinds of ways. Individual interviews are commonly used where the information the business wants is particularly detailed and thorough.

Focus groups are important and can be run along pre-determined lines. For example, the groups may be determined by age or another indicator such as level of experience in using a product and so on.

How the information is gathered is important too. Brainstorming sessions, user interviews, as a group or individually, and asking people to complete a questionnaire are all common features of UX projects.

Many of these kinds of interviews are based on observation too. As a result, the person doing the observing of users and customers needs to have a heightened awareness of their own thoughts and opinions.

Our own judgments invariably color how we see things and when we observe someone struggling to check out online, rather than thinking this may be a design fault, we may assume it is because their computer skills are pretty low.

Take a look at some of the things that make for a great set of user interviews:

• You need to be genuine and interested in what your customers are saying – Don’t be defensive.
• You need to adapt to each and every user – For example, if they have stopped talking, are they thinking, or have they finished what they have said?
• Be aware of how the customer is interacting with you – Are they telling you what they think you want to hear, rather than being honest?
• Makes sure the customer is providing their opinion – Did they find it difficult to use your website for example? You don’t want to know if their mom does…
• Some people will censor their own views – They might say it is a ‘complicated website to use, but for others, it’ll be fine.’ It’s never fine if they found the website difficult to use.
• You want to know the problems, not the solutions
• Always dig deeper – For this, you need to ask the ‘why?’ question.
• Your observations must be objective
• Let people speak spontaneously

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