05-898 Mini HCI for Product Managers
Interview Practice
Sherry Wu
sherryw@cs.cmu.edu
2025/01/27
Meet your TAs!
Elly Young
OH: Tues 2-3pm, GHC 7501
Interdisciplinary designer, architecture, decision science, HCI
Gabriella Howse
OH: Mons 2-3pm, NSH Commons
HCI, product management, design for learning
What do you remember from last class?
CLASS QUESTION
Understanding the User
?
Surveys / Questionnaires
Semi-structured Interviews
Artifact Walkthrough
Contextual Inquiry
Ethnography
Participatory Design�
SAY
THINK
DO
USE
KNOW
FEEL
DREAM
Learning Objective
Today will be a practice lecture!
Assignment #3 Preview — User Interview
Available now (so you can preview and prep), but can wait until Wed
You will interview a user from outside this room. Extra points will be given if you interview users who are not like you. For example, to improve Canvas:
After assignment #3, we will pool everybody’s data to begin synthesis.
HOMEWORK
If the past lectures have prompted you to rethink your original problem statement or scope, that is OK. Simply include your revisions as you submit assignment #3.
HOMEWORK
We will now watch an interview video together.
Try to identify one thing the interviewer did well, and one thing that the interview could have done better (e.g., “could have asked a follow up question on…”)
Post to #lecture:
Did well:
Could do better:
CLASS CHALLENGE
�
How to do a user interview (from Google Ventures updated)
A recap on Interview Tips
Interview questions: Goods and bads
Get specific
Tasks, roles, and details of tasks
Ask for examples & demonstration like an apprentice!
Open ended
be ready to hear something new and be changed by it
Semi-structured
Have an agenda – Interviewer needs data about specific kind of work
Steer conversation to stay on useful topics
But respect triggers and unexpected new topics
Common pitfalls
Suggesting answers
Hypothetical questions
Interview questions: Goods and bads
Several types of questions, to help you brainstorm
Behavioral: Can you describe a recent occasion when a patient alert was sounded, and tell me what you did?
Feeling: What do you like most about your job?
Knowledge: If a patient says she is in pain, what do you look for?
Illustrative questions: Some nurses hate working at night, but others like the flexibility. What’s your experience?
Role-playing questions: If I were a new nurse coming to this hospital, and I asked you what I should do to succeed, what would you tell me?
Preparatory questions: We’ve been talking about your job. Now I want to ask you about how you got to be where you are today.
Listening, drilling down, and follow up questions
Validate & rephrase
Share interpretations to check your reasoning, clarify terms
Ex. “So accountability means a paper trail?”
Repeat/rephrase/summarize to make sure you understood
People will be uncomfortable until the phrasing is right
Keep it concrete when people start abstracting
People summarize, but we need details
Watch for words “generally”, “we usually”
“We usually get reports by email”, ask “Can I see one?”
Ask why
Ask for an example
Ask for step-by-step actions
Additional interview activities
Tasks
“Can you draw me a map of your computer network?”
Participation
“Can you show me how I should make a Big Mac?”
Demonstration
“Show us how you update your playlists”
Role-playing
“I’ll be the customer and you be the receptionist responding to me”
Observations
Look in server room, access key locker, and other secure locations
Do
Act 1. Friendly Welcome
Act 2. Context Questions
Act 3. Introduce the Prototypes
Act 4. Tasks
Act 5. Debrief
Don’t
For the rest of the class
CLASS CHALLENGE
CLASS CHALLENGE