Evaluation Method

User Interview

A qualitative research method for understanding people’s experiences, expectations, needs, constraints, and interpretations.

Concept facts

A user interview is a qualitative research method in which a researcher asks participants open-ended questions to understand their experiences, expectations, reasoning, needs, and constraints.

Also known as
UX interview, qualitative interview, research interview, semi-structured interview
Used in
Discovery research, service research, product research, needs assessment, journey research, content and comprehension research
Interpret with
Research objective, participant selection, interview design, context, behavioral evidence, and analytic method

Plain-language explanation

A user interview is a guided conversation used to learn how people understand, experience, or make decisions about a product, service, system, or domain.

User interviews are useful when the team needs to understand motivations, expectations, constraints, language, prior experience, decision-making, or barriers that may not be visible in interface behavior alone.

A user interview is not the same as asking for quick opinions. Good interviews require a clear research purpose, careful participant selection, open-ended questions, neutral moderation, and systematic analysis.

Why it matters

User interviews help teams understand the context behind behavior. A person may avoid a service not because the interface is unusable, but because they do not trust the institution, do not understand eligibility, lack required documents, or expect hidden costs.

Interviews can also reveal language patterns and mental models that improve content design, service design, onboarding, and evaluation planning.

The method is especially useful before design decisions are finalized, when teams need to understand the problem space rather than test a specific interface.

Use contexts

  • Discovery and exploratory research
  • Needs assessment
  • Service journey research
  • Product strategy and feature understanding
  • Content and terminology research
  • Trust, confidence, and decision research
  • Recruitment screening for later evaluation

Application guidance

Start with a clear research question. Avoid using interviews only to ask whether people like a proposed design. Interviews are strongest when they explore experiences, decisions, expectations, constraints, and meanings.

Questions should be open and neutral. Instead of asking “Would this feature help you?”, ask “Can you tell me how you currently handle this situation?”

Interview findings should be analyzed systematically. Single quotes can illustrate findings, but they should not be used as proof without pattern analysis and context.

Practical example

A research team interviews small business owners about why they avoid a digital loan application process. The interviews show that the main barrier is not only the form interface.

Participants describe uncertainty about collateral requirements, fear of hidden fees, difficulty preparing documents, and dependence on staff explanation. These findings help the team separate content, trust, policy, and interface issues before redesigning the flow.

Interpretive boundaries

  • Interviews capture reported experience, not direct task performance.
  • Participants may not accurately predict future behavior.
  • Interview findings depend on sampling, question quality, moderation, and analysis.
  • Interviews should not be treated as usability testing.
  • Interview evidence should be combined with observation, testing, analytics, or service data where appropriate.

Applied at Userhub

User interviews are relevant when Userhub investigates user needs, service barriers, terminology, trust, expectations, and decision contexts before or alongside product and service evaluation.

See Userhub UX Lab for applied UX research and evaluation context.

Sources and references

  • Brinkmann, S., & Kvale, S. (2015). InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications.
  • Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2012). Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications.
  • Seidman, I. (2013). Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences (4th ed.). Teachers College Press.
  • ISO. (2019). Ergonomics of human-system interaction — Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems (ISO Standard No. 9241-210:2019). International Organization for Standardization.

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Cite this entry

APA

Userhub. (2026). User Interview. UX Reference. https://userhub.com.bd/reference/user-interview/