Add awkward to your user interviews

We all like to avoid awkward situations. And for many maintainers of open source projects and founders of open source companies, user interviews are awkward, in and of themselves. In fact, chances are you aren’t doing enough user interviews. But what I want to talk about is how you should not only do more user interviews, but you should intentionally make them even more awkward than they already are.

When you ask a question, your interviewee will answer, usually with something they’ve thought through beforehand, since they will probably have some inkling of what you’re likely to ask about. Then they’ll stop talking. The silence that follows is your social cue to ask your next question.

Try to ignore it and let the silence linger.

It is really, really hard. It feels extremely awkward to let silence hang in the air. And not just for you, as the interviewer — the user is going to feel really uncomfortable, too. Eventually, the interviewee will probably feel so uncomfortable that he or she will start talking again, just to fill the silence.

When that happens, users are likely to start going off script. They’ll probably ramble a bit, but you’ll get the less-rehearsed, rawer opinions. They’ll tell you more than they intended to, and it will be less filtered.

So you’ll finish the interview with more total information, information that blasts through prepared talking points and is more likely to capture emotion.

It is awkward, though. And surprisingly hard to force yourself to do. But give it a try next time you do a user interview and see if you can elicit even more information for your users.

Oh, by the way: I’m going to be at FOSDEM, and I’m going to do a talk on this subject! If you want to hear me talk about why and how to make your interviewees uncomfortable, or if you just want to say hi, check it out!