Lecture 16 - How to Run a User Interview (Emmett Shear)

His first startup, Kiko Calendar, was built by two non-calendar users who never talked to any, and it was sold on eBay. His second, Justin.tv, used the trick of being its own consumer.

The first question for almost any startup is who your user is and where to find them. He had the class write down five types of people to interview and pick the most important.

A volunteer was interviewed about taking notes in class, with follow-up questions about how she merges Evernote, Google Docs and paper notes and whether she goes back to them.

The question you cannot ask is whether a feature is good, since people say yes to ideas but do not switch when it is built. Use diagrams and workflows to learn what they do instead.

Interviewing only competitors' users keeps you from growing the market. At Twitch, non-streamers said their computers were too slow or they feared giving away strategy, which drove outreach and built-in broadcasting.

Shear favors live conversations because a follow-up question can uncover what a short answer misses. He recommends asking permission before recording and using the recordings to help colleagues understand the evidence behind a product decision.

Shear says the team found it easier to understand English-speaking users. He describes hiring Korean speakers and working with translators to learn needs in other markets, rather than assuming feedback from one language represents everyone.