Design practice

Your First User Interview

Hands-on project to practice research skills

Start the exercise

01 / Prepare

What you’ll
work on.

Plan, conduct, and synthesize a real user interview on a product or service you use regularly. The goal is to practice the full interview lifecycle, not to produce groundbreaking insights.

Before you begin

  • Familiarity with open-ended interview questions and qualitative research
  • Access to one willing participant (friend, colleague, family member)
  • Note-taking tool (Google Docs, Notion, pen and paper)

02 / Practice

The work,
step by step.

Work through these 3 parts at your own pace. Keep your notes and work together so you can review them when you finish.

  1. Planning

    45 min

    1. Pick a product — Choose an app or service both you and your participant use (e.g., a grocery delivery app, a music streaming service, a calendar tool)

    2. Write a research question — One sentence describing what you want to learn. Example: "How do people decide what to cook for dinner during a busy week?"

    3. Write a discussion guide — 8–10 open-ended questions that explore the research question. Include: 2 warm-up questions (background, habits), 4–5 core questions (behaviors, motivations, frustrations), and 2 closing questions (wishes, anything else)

    4. Prepare logistics — Recording permission, quiet environment, 30-minute time block

  2. Conducting the Interview

    30 min

    1. Brief the participant: purpose, duration, no wrong answers, recording consent

    2. Follow your guide but be flexible — follow interesting threads

    3. Practice: open-ended questions, silence (let them think), "tell me more about that"

    4. Avoid: leading questions, suggesting answers, talking more than the participant

  3. Synthesis

    60 min

    1. Review your notes/recording

    2. Pull out 5–7 key observations (what surprised you, what patterns emerged)

    3. Write 2–3 insight statements: "[User type] needs [something] because [reason]"

    4. Identify one thing you'd do differently next time

03 / Review

Look at what
you’ve made.

Gather your deliverables, then use the criteria to find what worked and what you would change. They also give a peer something specific to respond to.

What to bring together

  • Discussion guide (8–10 questions)
  • Interview notes or transcript
  • 2–3 insight statements
  • Self-reflection: what worked, what didn't, what you'd change

How to assess your work

Question quality
Open-ended, non-leading, exploring behavior not just opinion
Listening
Evidence of follow-up questions, not just reading the script
Synthesis
Insights grounded in what the participant said, not assumptions
Self-awareness
Honest reflection on what was hard and what to improve

Choose your
next exercise.

Browse all exercises