• Before the chat

    • Know your learning objectives and write down your questions ahead of time.
  • As the chat starts

    • Avoid having too many people around the table, which can be intimidating to the user.
    • Put the user at ease — ask them how it's going, where they're calling from, questions about themselves and their lives, exchange jokes, do small talk, etc…
  • Throughout the chat

    • Your goal is to learn as much as possible.

    • Avoid interrupting users or speaking too much — you're paying by the word!

      • One exception to this is when a user rambles on something you don't care about.
    • There's an art to user research: you need it to feel like a normal, casual chat, while actually letting the user do as much of the talking as possible and hitting your learning objectives.

    • Be warm and smiling.

    • Encourage the user to speak, by nodding and "hmm hmm"ing during the conversation.

    • Ask open-ended questions (what / how / why) and not close-ended ones (do you…?)

    • Be careful not to ask loaded questions.

      • Bad: "So do you have a hard time building culture when working remotely?"
      • Good: "What are your top problems about working remotely?"
    • Ask a lot of follow-up questions.

      • "Why?"
      • "Tell me more."
    • Leverage silence to get them to talk more. People hate silence and will do everything to fill it. Count the threads in your carpet, fiddle with a pen, wonder what you're going to eat tonight… Let them interrupt the silence.

      • One useful format of question is also the unfinished sentence: "and so then you…"
    • Answer their questions with questions.

      • USER: do you guys intend to build X? YOU: do you think we should? What do you need X for?
    • Try to understand the intention behind feature requests.

      • Suggestions can be informative, but you're most interested in the user's problem.
      • For example, "I want my team to receive an email every time I take a new note" is a solution. The underlying problem is "I need to keep my team in the loop."
    • Ask users for actuals, not intentions.

      • Bad: would you use a product like this?
      • Good: when's the last time you used a product like this? Why? How was it?
      • Bad: would you pay for something like this?
      • Good: how much do you currently pay for similar products?
    • Take a lot of notes.

      • It's better if the note-taker is not the same person leading the conversation, so that person can focus on the chat.
    • After the chat

      • Summarize your key takeaways in 3-6 bullet points.
      • Debrief with the team. Let everyone talk of their takeaways, and what surprised them.

    Interesting related books:

    • The Mom Test
    • The Four Steps to the Epiphany