Writing discussion guides for my one-on-one interview sessions used to terrify me. Would I sound like a robot? Would the participant feel like they were in a police interrogation? Would I ask too many questions? Too few? And, most scary, would I bias, lead, or confuse the participant?
With all those questions spinning through my mind, it was challenging for me to write my discussion guides. And, because of that, my questions felt stunted and forced. As a result, I often struggled to go deep with participants and have them open up during these sessions.
And then I met TED(W)—who got the How I Met Your Mother reference?
TEDW is an acronym I use to create open-ended, unbiased questions that get participants to tell you stories about their past experiences. Because, when it comes down to it, we do qualitative user research to get these stories. Stories turn into insights that turn into highly actionable recommendations that can help your teams make better, user-centric decisions.
So, how do we use TEDW to write the best interview questions? First, we have to plan for success!
If you know me, I am (annoyingly) strict about beginning projects with valid and answerable research questions and goals. I always begin this way because I have learned it is imperative to the success of a project. If you don't have a clear research question and goals, you will have difficulty creating discussion questions that make sense to you, your stakeholders, and the participant. Without a solid research question and goals, you can find yourself all over the place, with little focus, in your interviews.
A good research question is:
Centered around understanding or discovering something about people (not your product)
A problem/idea we don't fully understand
A concept or idea we need more information on to move forward
Often, I get asked to answer questions like:
“Do users prefer this or that design?”
“Do people like the product/feature/idea?”
“Can users use the product/feature/idea?”