The Interview!
When my sprint team and I met during phase four of our spring to discuss our user experience surveys for our teen finance app ‘BizWiz,’ it was a very quick meeting as we efficiently prepared our prototype. During our meeting, we discussed who to interview, how to go about the interview and which questions to ask. Ultimately, we took inspiration from Google user experience surveys and utilized Google forms and Zoom to conduct our interviews. During my interview, I had the user go through the prototype and I made sure to let the user explore the app for herself. Then, I had her fill out the Google form and made sure she understood each question in the survey. When my group and I completed our interviews on our own time, we worked on collecting the data and presenting it in a Miro board. This helped us visualize common themes and what we can work on for the next steps.
Five-Act Interview
When conducting an interview, a good rule of thumb is the Five-Act interview method, according to Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz of “Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days.” In the book, the writers list how to follow the structure:
- A friendly welcome to start the interview
- A series of general, open-ended context questions about the customer
- Introduction to the prototype(s)
- Detailed tasks to get the customer reacting to the prototype
- A quick debrief to capture the customer’s overarching thoughts and impressions
When starting the prototype test and survey, I asked my interviewee general questions like how her summer has been and where she’s working. Then, I asked if I could record the interview. Once she gave consent, I then asked questions regarding the app. I asked if she’s ever seen a finance app for teens or has used tools as a teen to help her better understand finance. She told me she never used an app or website before and after going through the prototype, she mentioned that she could’ve used an app like BizWiz when she was younger to help her better understand how to manage personal finances.
As she went through the prototype, I asked questions she had regarding what certain features were and also asked her questions such as “What does this look like to you?” “How do you think this would help a teen learn more about finance?” During this process, she was able to dive deep in the prototype and really understand each feature. Afterward, she filled out the survey and I asked for her overall thoughts on the app and clarified any confusion she had regarding the survey.
Avoid Bias
An important part of user experience testing is to not input any bias that could influence the results. According to Dora Chan, some ways a sprint designer can avoid bias during an interview includes:
- Making it conversational
- Be a journalist and document the interview
- Don’t make it about you and your objective key results
- Be objective
- Share the results with team members and discuss the results
Following these simple steps will help ensure a sprint designer will have an unbiased, effective prototype test that will provide more insights for the next steps!