USER INTERVIEW
CHEAT SHEET
Questions to ask B2B and B2C users
U X I N T E R V I E W C H E AT S H E E T
QUESTIONS FOR B2B AND B2C END USERS
I NTROD U C TI ON
My Advice for Asking Great Questions
As you’ll see throughout this guide, asking the right questions starts with the actual form of the
questions you ask. These should be open-ended, non-leading, non-specific questions that let the
person fill in the details of the answer. You don’t necessarily ask them about what software or hardware they use; you ask them what they do, how they would complete a task.
That means you don’t ask a question like “what part of this application do you use to do Task X?”
Why? Because that question focuses on the tool the person is using — instead of the process they
go through. Usability and UX problems are very rarely the sole result of a technology issue; there
are a handful of other seemingly unrelated factors that, in many cases, turn out to be the real problem: company policies, processes, politics, deadlines, stress, noise, interruptions, etc. So again, if
you only ask a user about the software she’s using, you won’t get any information about the other
factors that may be directly responsible for the issues at hand.
The software may very well suck — but if there’s a process or policy in place that doesn’t allow that
person enough time or give them the right data to do their job, that’s the real issue. And if you don’t
know this is an issue, the person and the organization will still have the same problem after the
redesign launches or your engagement is over.
Not only is that bad for the organization, it’s bad for you too, because in the organization’s eyes
they’ve just invested a great deal of time and money on… well... nothing.
When you say something open-ended like “Walk me through how you would complete Task X,”
that person may tell you about another system or website (or two or three) they use in order to
get additional information before they act. They may explain how they have to make three phone
calls to three different departments to get additional information before doing anything. They may
explain how they wind up using their mobile phone instead of their desktop machine because
they’re stuck in meetings for more than half their workday.
Are there other questions you can ask? Sure — hundreds, in fact. But in the majority of circumstances, no one has the time (or the budget) to ask or answer all of them. So I’ve learned to focus
on the questions that deliver the most valuable information back to the team. Questions that focus
on the underlying causes of most UX problems. That’s what you’ll find in this cheat sheet.
I hope this helps you uncover great insights — GIVE GOOD UX!
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U X I N T E R V I E W C H E AT S H E E T
QUESTIONS FOR B2B AND B2C END USERS
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M OTI VATI ON
QUESTION TO A SK
WH Y YOU NE E D TO KNOW
How do you define a successful
work day?
Use is tied to motivation, and motivation comes from
some kind of reward — a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of increased competence or a specific goal achieved.
At the end of the day, what makes that person feel like
they were productive, like they got things accomplished?
What things happen that give the person that impression?
What has to happen in order
for you to feel good when you
leave?
The opposite question is valuable as well: what kinds of
things make you feel unproductive? Frustrated?
Does that definition of success
(and your stated goals) change
from day to day — or from week
to week?
Are there certain times of year
where what you need to accomplish changes?
If either their goals or what they believe is success is different on Tuesdays, or during specific months of the year
(as in retail organizations), you need to know about it.
If the target changes, you want to know how, when and
why that change occurs— because the chances are very
good your product will need to support that variance.
What are the top three things
standing in the way of you
accomplishing your goals or
having a successful workday?
What’s keeping them from getting where they need to go?
Notice the question isn’t tool- or software specific. You
want to hear about their issues, period — anything and
everything. Thinking past the tool and about the problem
people have is how innovative solutions are born.
What are the biggest problems,
obstacles or inefficiencies you
deal with?
You want to get a sense of what prevents people from being efficient, or makes them do more work than they feel
is necessary. You want to hear about the things that grind
productivity to a halt and stops everyone in their tracks.
Why do you think these things
happen?
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You’re looking for the underlying causes of issues, errors,
backlogs and the like. The why part of the question will
tell you what features and functions you can design to
help solve this problem.
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U X I N T E R V I E W C H E AT S H E E T
QUESTIONS FOR B2B AND B2C END USERS
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PE RCE P TI ON (E XPE RI E N CE S)
QUESTION TO A SK
WH Y YOU NE E D TO KNOW
Did you do have this same role
at other organizations you’ve
worked for?
If their previous job experience included the same basic
responsibilities, you want to know if the last experience
was better. You can learn from that, using it to inform
features and functions. Again, the why is the heavy lifting
of this question; it will provide the most insight as to what
could or should be different in the current scenario.
Was it better, worse or different
– and why (or how)?
Did you perform these tasks
in the same way at any of these
other organizations?
Was it better, worse or different
– and why (or how)?
What part of this work do you
hate doing? Why?
Again, most people have worked for more than one company, so they will likely have experienced variations on
a theme — different ways of doing the same thing. Some
workflows or processes may be more complex than the
current scenario. But you’ll often hear about parts that
worked better, and sometimes even hearing what was different sparks improvement ideas for the current product.
You want to know where their biggest perceived pain
point is. The part of this process they know is coming, but
that they’re really dreading, and likely wishing they didn’t
have to do.
The answer, especially if echoed by a significant number of other people you interview, gives you a clue that
this particular issue may be high on your list of priorities.
There is no better way to increase use and adoption than
to remove or fix something that really drives people crazy.
What frustrates you most about
this? Why?
Similar question, asked for a similar reason. For instance,
people often complain when they have to enter in any
sort of identifying account information more than once. In
organizations where people use multiple legacy systems,
this frustrates people to the point where their productivity
decreases due to being fixated on the wasted effort.
In most instances (a) they’ve already been asked for it
once and (b) they expect the system to have it already.
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U X I N T E R V I E W C H E AT S H E E T
QUESTIONS FOR B2B AND B2C END USERS
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TA S KS , AC TI V ITI E S A N D WORKFLOWS
QUESTION TO A SK
WH Y YOU NE E D TO KNOW
How do you go about doing X?
This is the heart of the matter: how do people do what
they do, and what happens. You want to know how this
person does their work, with or without the software in
question. If you only ask a user about the software she’s
using, you won’t get any information about the other
factors that may be directly responsible for the issues at
hand.
(Name a specific task without
referencing the software, app
or system in question)
The software may very well suck — but if there’s a process
or policy in place that doesn’t allow that person enough
time or give them the right data to do their job, that’s the
real issue. Which makes it the real thing your proposed
improvements have to address in order for them to be
meaningful, relevant and valuable to users.
This can be any number of things that they do during the
course of a normal work day. For example, if the product
you’ve been asked to design is a time and attendance
system, you might ask the person, “How do you usually
go about filling out your time sheet? Walk me through that
process.“ You may hear something like:
“I type in my hours and hand my timesheet to my
boss. He has to approve it, and if something’s
wrong or he doesn’t agree, he gives it back to
me and tells me what to change. If it’s approved
it goes to Anne in HR, who has to approve it,
and from there it goes to Accounting because
they have to bill the client for my time.”
In three sentences, this person has just given you intel on
a probable workflow and the people it may need to notify
when events occur. You’re getting requirements — just by
having a simple conversation.
From the previous answer, for example, you know that:
Three other people have to view and
approve what the user submits.
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U X I N T E R V I E W C H E AT S H E E T
QUESTIONS FOR B2B AND B2C END USERS
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TA S KS , AC TI V ITI E S A N D WORKFLOWS
QUESTION TO A SK
How do you go about doing X?
(Name a specific task without referencing the software, app or system
in question; you may have to ask this
question multiple times if there are
multiple tasks the user carries out)
WH Y YOU NE E D TO KNOW
If it’s incorrect, the approver needs the
ability to add a comment explaining
what needs to be fixed (and why).
The user needs the ability to modify
their entries and re-submit.
(continued)
Each time one of the parties approves
the timesheet, the next party in the
chain needs to be notified that it’s
ready for their review.
It may need to be integrated with an
existing accounting system where
hours and project codes can be imported and populated on an invoice.
This is how useful, valuable requirements are
created. Instead of picking them out of the air or
mimicking existing systems, you start with people: who they are, what they do and what needs
to happen as a result.
What information do you need
beforehand in order to carry out
this task?
(Again, be specific to the task
at hand)
Very rarely does anyone just fire up the screen and go.
There’s always something they need to know before they
get started, and you want to know where they get it. It
could be another person in the office, it could be email,
it could be a stack of papers from another department or
data they access via another separate system.
Knowing this is valuable, because you may find an opportunity to consolidate some of the legwork involved in their
“gathering” efforts.
For example, your conversation may suggest that the user
could reduce his overall effort or time to completion if all
necessary information was available in the same system.
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U X I N T E R V I E W C H E AT S H E E T
QUESTIONS FOR B2B AND B2C END USERS
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TA S KS , AC TI V ITI E S A N D WORKFLOWS
QUESTION TO A SK
WH Y YOU NE E D TO KNOW
Who is on the receiving end of
the work you do, and what do
they do with it?
Information or data of any kind is never touched by
only one person. The output of this user’s work has
to also be useful to the person who receives it. As
such, you need to understand what they’ll use that
information or data to do (and why, and how).
For example, let’s say you’re working for a financial
services organization. Each member of the sales
team is responsible for filing a quarterly report on
their numbers. While you may be interviewing that
salesperson, three other people consume the data
he enters into the system: his regional supervisor,
the head of his division and the VP of sales.
Each of these people uses that data to make very
different decisions and likely has to share it in very
different ways — to groups of people who will also
need to use and share it in different ways!
What this means to you: the constraints around data
input and output have to be flexible enough that it
can be stored, saved, shared, exported and acted
on in a variety of ways. So every detail, down to
what the form field on the salesperson’s screen is
labeled, matters a great deal.
How often do you do this work
(or use this product)?
You’re looking to learn something about frequency
of use, because that tells you something about how
valuable the product and it’s functionality is. If the
tool is used often, it’s probably become part of that
person’s daily life.
And if it’s part of that person’s life, you want that
to continue to be the case. So if you want them to
keep using it, it’s pretty important to find out what’s
good or bad about it.
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U X I N T E R V I E W C H E AT S H E E T
QUESTIONS FOR B2B AND B2C END USERS
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TA S KS , AC TI V ITI E S A N D WORKFLOWS
QUESTION TO A SK
WH Y YOU NE E D TO KNOW
What tools do you use to do
your work?
People will often use something other than the
intended tool because to them, it’s easier. Quite
often, you’ll find that someone is using an app or
site in a way that’s slightly (and often radically) different than what it was designed to do. This, again,
is an opportunity to uncover potential features you
may never otherwise have thought of.
Google, for example, is essentially a search engine.
You go there and you search the Internet. But there
are a lot of people for whom Google IS the Internet.
As such, these folks will go to the search bar on the
Google main screen and type in a full URL, www.
givegoodux.com, instead of typing it in the address
bar in the browser. For them, Google is the one and
only way you use the Internet.
It’s really important to ask this question — because
the answer may be a far cry from what you expect.
What other things do you do (or
use) before, during or after you
use this product?
Nothing is used in a vacuum, so a lot of times there
will be something that a user is doing before they
login to the system or open the app.
In the same way, there may also be some consistent
task that they perform after they use your app with
a different tool (which may or may not be a piece
of software). If that’s happening, you want to know
what those other tools or products are.
The related information needs, tasks and activities inherent in these before-and-after activities
may suggest valuable features or functions. Some
of which would eliminate extra work for the user.
Which, of course, is likely to make them very happy.
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U X I N T E R V I E W C H E AT S H E E T
QUESTIONS FOR B2B AND B2C END USERS
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TA S KS , AC TI V ITI E S A N D WORKFLOWS
QUESTION TO A SK
WH Y YOU NE E D TO KNOW
Are there other products you’ve
used that are similar to this one?
What you’re asking here is “how does this system
stack up against other things that do the same thing
(or similar things)?” If there’s no direct comparison
to be had, you might ask:
What are the top three tools, sites or
apps that you use on a regular basis?
Which do you return to most often?
Can you see this app becoming part of
your daily routine? Why or why not?
This holistic approach will give you some insight
as to what recurring, useful role your product or
service could play in the person’s life. And that
insight should be considered within the context
of all the other things that they’re doing.
What other systems or applications do you use while you’re
at work?
In the business world, you’ll never find an instance
where one single system handles everything the
organization needs to do on a daily basis. From the
email system to the Intranet to the Project Management software to the CRM platform to the CMS that
runs the client portal to the Accounting & Billing
software... you see where I’m going with this? Separate applications, separate systems, separate users.
As such, the things that get shared between those
systems — and how well or how poorly that sharing
happens — have a big impact on user and customer
experience. The design decisions you make related to features and functions will directly impact the
other systems your app talks to — and may cause
problems for those users as well. So in order to
make good decisions you need to know what those
other systems are and how they work.
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U X I N T E R V I E W C H E AT S H E E T
QUESTIONS FOR B2B AND B2C END USERS
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TA S KS , AC TI V ITI E S A N D WORKFLOWS
QUESTION TO A SK
WH Y YOU NE E D TO KNOW
What are the top three sites
or apps that you use on a
regular basis?
The things we use are what create our expec-
Which do you return to time and
time again?
ing at consumer-based products, because they
tations about how things work. I will often hear
a B2B customer say that we shouldn’t be lookdon’t sell to a consumer market.
That may be true, but they do sell to human
beings. And human beings use all sorts of
things, from ecommerce sites to mobile apps to
social media to, yes, enterprise systems. Every
single one of those experiences has taught
them to expect certain things from digital products. All digital products.
In other words, users don’t make the distinction between B2B or B2C when it comes to
how they expect things to be labeled or positioned or how they should work. So neither you
or your client should be quick to discount either
side of the fence, and always remember that
expectations are formed by all experiences.
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