Conducting User Interviews for UX Research

Carefully planning your research and recruiting the right participants can greatly contribute to the success of a user interview. How you conduct the interview and how you conduct yourself during the interview are also integral to the process.

A successful interviewer can engage participants, make them feel comfortable, and elicit information they might not even know they have. You don’t need to possess an innate set of qualities to be a great interviewer. With time and training, anyone can learn the techniques and improve their interviewing skills.

Body language in user interviews

Non-verbal communication shapes every user interview, often more than the questions you ask. Paying attention to both your own body language and the participant's gives you a fuller, more honest picture of what's being shared.

As an interviewer, how you carry yourself signals whether you're truly engaged. A few practices make a real difference:

• Position yourself at the same level as the participant, so if they're sitting, you're sitting too. Standing above someone, even unintentionally, can feel patronizing and put them on edge before the interview even begins.
• Show you're engaged through natural eye contact, the occasional nod, and a relaxed, open expression.
• Avoid empathetic phrases like "I understand how you feel" or "something similar happened to me." Your role is to hear and document what the participant shares, not to relate to it.

The participant's body language is equally telling. Non-verbal cues often surface what words alone don't capture, revealing when someone feels uncomfortable, rushed, or uncertain. Use these signals to decide when to follow up, ask for clarification, or shift direction.

Common cues to watch for:

• Crossed arms
• Fidgeting or twitching
• Avoiding eye contact
• Rushing through answers^[1]

Four seconds of silence

In an interview, your job is to listen. Let participants do most of the talking, and resist the urge to jump in the moment they pause. Cutting someone off, even with good intentions, signals that you're driving the conversation rather than following it.

Silence feels uncomfortable, but it's one of your sharpest tools. Most people instinctively fill a quiet moment, and that instinct works in your favor: participants will often follow a pause with something more considered and revealing than their first response.

When someone stops talking, don't rush to the next question. Give them 5-10 seconds of space. That pause pushes participants past their surface-level answer and into something more honest and specific.

Pro Tip! If you see a certain path of questioning is giving you shorter and shorter answers, move on to something else and circle back later.

Active listening

Listening is more than just hearing words. Active listening means fully taking in what someone is saying, processing it, and responding in a way that shows you understood. Like most skills, it gets better the more you practice it.

Here are some techniques to help you listen actively during interviews:

• Focus your attention: Resist the urge to multitask. Give the participant your full, undivided attention.
• Show you're engaged. Make eye contact, nod, and use small verbal cues like "yes" or "uh-huh" to signal you're following along.
• Ask relevant questions: Open-ended, personalized questions build rapport and encourage participants to go deeper.
• Clarify as you go. If something isn't clear, ask. A simple "Sorry, what do you mean by that?" prevents misunderstandings before they compound.
• Paraphrase to confirm. Restate what you heard in your own words. Phrases like "Did I get that right?" invite the participant to correct you if needed, which often surfaces more detail.
• Hold your questions. Jumping in too early frustrates the speaker and cuts off the thought. Let them finish before you respond.
• Summarize at the end: Close the session by briefly restating the key points and any conclusions you reached together.^[2]

Set the stage and build rapport

The first few minutes of an interview set the tone for everything that follows. When participants feel at ease, they're far more likely to give honest, detailed answers rather than polished, guarded ones.

A few things that help:

• Smile and bring a positive attitude. It sounds simple, but warmth is contagious. A relaxed interviewer makes for a relaxed participant.
• Introduce everyone present. If you have a notetaker or observer in the room or on the call, make sure the participant knows who they are and why they're there. Walking into a session with unintroduced strangers is unsettling.
• Break the ice with small talk. Before jumping into the interview, take a minute to connect as people. Comment on something they mentioned in their screener, compliment something they're wearing, or simply ask how their day is going. Small moments like these lower the guard faster than any formal opener.
• Confirm consent to record. Even if the participant signed a consent form earlier, ask again now. It shows respect and gives them a clear moment to say yes.
• State your objectives. Tell them what you're trying to learn and how the session will run. Participants who understand the purpose tend to engage more openly.
• Set time expectations. Let them know how long the interview will take so they can relax into it rather than watching the clock.
• Start with easy personal questions. Ask about their background, technology habits, or what drew them to your product. Keep it to 3-5 short questions. This eases them into the conversation before you get to the core of the interview.^[3]

Ask one question at a time

Even experienced researchers fall into the trap of asking compound questions, ones that bundle two separate things into a single question. It happens naturally when you're thinking ahead: "Tell me how you discovered this feature, and how you decided to start using it" feels like one question, but it's actually two. The participant now has to hold both parts in their head while answering, and will almost always address only one of them, often the last thing they heard.

The fix is to split compound questions before they leave your mouth. Ask the first part, wait for the full answer, then ask the second. This gives each question the space it deserves and keeps you in control of where the conversation goes.

A good check is to scan your interview guide before the session and look for "and" or "or" connecting two ideas within a single question. If you find one, break it in two. For example, "What made you start using this tool, and have you tried any alternatives?" becomes two separate questions: "What made you start using this tool?" followed later by "Have you tried anything similar before?"

Pro Tip! If a compound question slips out during a session, you can recover by simply picking one part and asking it again clearly: "Actually, let's start with just the first part. What made you try it in the first place?"

Don’t forget follow-up questions

People don't always give detailed answers to every question, so you might need to help them to provide you with the information you need. Repeating the same question isn't a good strategy. Instead, use follow-up questions to come at it from a different angle.

Here are some best practices for asking follow-up questions:

• Ask your original question in a slightly different way. If you get a vague response, it's worth rephrasing the question for better clarity.
• Connect your interviewee's answers together. This helps clarify the participant's position and shows that you're listening. For example, link their response to a previous one by saying, "Is that what you meant earlier when you said…?"
• Dig deeper by using the 5 whys method. This technique helps you get closer to the root cause. For example, the participant says they think your interface is too messy. Ask them why they think it's messy. If they think it's messy because the navigation bar has too many items, ask them why they don't like having too many items in the navigation bar, and so on.[1]

Avoid leading users

Avoid asking questions that will lead users to give you the desired answer instead of the real answer.

For example, if you're interviewing someone about how they listen to music, you might ask, "How often do you listen to music on Spotify?" However, this question leads participants in two ways: it assumes they're active Spotify users and pushes them to only think about listening to music through streaming platforms.

Instead, ask a more neutral, open-ended question like "How do you normally listen to music?" This way, you're likely to get more insightful responses.

Pro Tip! Read through your list of prepared questions and topics before the interview to identify leading questions and assumptions.

Record the session if possible

Recording your interviews is one of the most practical habits you can build as a researcher. Knowing the session is captured lets you stay fully present in the conversation rather than scrambling to take notes.

Recordings also give you something to return to. Memory is unreliable, and even detailed in-session notes can miss the nuance of how something was said. A recording lets you revisit exact moments, catch things you missed, and quote participants accurately when presenting findings.

Where possible, record video rather than audio only. Facial expressions, hesitations, and body language carry meaning that words alone don't capture, especially when a participant's reaction to a question tells a different story than their answer.

Consider transcribing your recordings, too. A transcript lets you scan and search through a session in minutes rather than rewatching the whole thing. Most researchers today use AI-powered tools like Otter.ai or Grain for speed, then review the output for accuracy. Human transcription is more reliable but comes at a higher cost.

Always confirm consent to record at the start of the session, even if the participant has already signed a consent form.^[4]

Minimize note-taking during the session

Taking notes while conducting an interview feels productive, but it works against you. When your attention is split between writing and listening, you inevitably miss things: a hesitation, an unexpected detail, a thread worth following. Research consistently shows that dividing attention between two demanding tasks reduces performance on both.

There's also a social cost. Participants who watch you type or scribble can feel like they're being documented rather than heard, which makes them more guarded.

The most effective solution is to bring a dedicated notetaker. With someone else handling capture, you can give the participant your full attention. Make sure to introduce the notetaker at the start so their presence doesn't feel strange.

If a dedicated notetaker isn't an option, record the session and keep your notes minimal. Jot down keywords and timestamps to flag moments you want to revisit. The recording does the heavy lifting.^[5]

Pro Tip! Even with a notetaker present, take a few minutes after the session to write down your immediate impressions. Fresh observations often surface insights that transcripts alone don't capture.

Don’t go over the allotted time

User interviews usually last between 30 minutes and an hour. When you need to explore a topic in depth, sessions can stretch to 90 minutes, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Attention fades over time, and so does the quality of what participants share.

Aim for 30-45 minutes per session. This is long enough to warm up at the start, cover your core questions, and close properly, while short enough to feel manageable for both you and the participant.

Respect the time you agreed on. Ending on schedule signals to participants that you take their commitment seriously, which matters for your reputation as a researcher and for any follow-up work you might need from them. If you run out of time before covering everything, ask whether they'd be open to a brief follow-up call rather than pushing past the agreed-upon end time.