Lecture 16 - How to Run a User Interview (Emmett Shear)

Building product, and talking to users. In the early stages of your startup, those are the two things you should focus on.

[beaksfx]

This lecture should've been 2nd or 3rd. This seems much more focused on early startup stuff, even though it's near the end of the series.

[EmbraceTheHustle]

I think Stephanie is a really good (insightful) person to conduct User Interviews on 👏👏

[chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) -
00:00 - Intro: Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch, discusses user interviews
00:25 - Startup mistakes: Avoiding users and building greatness
03:08 - Gaming market insights gained through user interaction
03:38 - Twitchs user insights led to product success
06:25 - Building a lecture-focused notetaking app with user feedback
08:20 - Who to Interview
10:52 - College students, IT administrators, parents, critical users
12:20 - Example User Interview with Stephanie
13:35 - Google Docs vs Evernote for notetaking
14:51 - Notetaking habits for different types of events
15:50 - Questions to Avoid
18:50 - Ideas: One feature on top of Google Docs
21:17 - Google Docs Sticky notetaking, collaborative, mobile
21:45 - Validate
23:50 - Minimum Required to Validate
25:32 - Twitch feedback from broadcasters, not features
29:39 - Talking to Non-Broadcasters helps grow market
34:46 - Common Mistakes
36:30 - Getting Buy-in from Users
37:31 - Do we insist on Skype Interviews for Recording
38:08 - Detective mode vs email interviews
38:41 - International Market: User Interviews
39:46 - Channels: Contacting users via messaging systems and onsite feedback
40:56 - User Feedback Tools: Onsite user feedback vs data-driven feedback
42:06 - Treating Groups
43:08 - Talking to Video Game Industry
45:08 - How do you give good user feedback?
46:16 - Outro

[wasikhan]

Y'all, I actually followed along with the *interactive* session in this video so like if anyone is nerdy enough to do the same copy/paste yours as a reply here. We can learn shit, not only passively watch this you know.

_Figuring out who to talk to for the lecture note-app (__07:39__)_
This idea is to build a note-taking app for lectures (online/offline). So, let's see, the key question here I think is 'lectures' which are essentially monolgues. Sometimes meetings turn into monologues as well. So I would interview students (the obvious choice), secretaries (since they probably keep notes during meetings), educators (to ask if they'd like a way to streamline their lectures and team leaders.

_Summary of the user interview with Stephanie (__12:35__)_

The first question he asked was: what are your note taking habits? How are you taking notes today? Then, interjected the girl to ask 'what software do you use to do those things today?' (13:00) seemed like a play to get competitors). She said pen and paper: so like no direct competition or like too hard a competition. Follows that with, do you actually go back and look back at these notes? (Emmett boi is tryna get to the core). The discussion then moved to software and he asked what she uses and she says Google Docs and Evernote (this time we have name ya'll). She said she uses two tools, next question then becomes why two tools? (To be honest, a lot of use use two tools to do one job today it's sad). Anyways, so she said that she uses Google docs when she's working with people and Evernote for solo use and then exclaims 'I wish it was integrated'. To be honest, she'...

Next question is 'Do you go back to seeing those notes?'. She says not so much.But then she reveals that she doesn't take notes only in class and outside as well (She may be a poweruser folks).

_One feature that convinces Stephanie to switch from Google Docs_ (19:40)
It's easy to say integration since she explicitly asked for it. One option is to let her download her evernotes (do they call it that?) to Google Docs via a plugin. But assuming that
we have to compete with Google Docs explicity (as Emmett says) by one-upping a feature I would say adding a feature called 'Recall' would do the trick and what that would do is to highlight some areas in her documents and sort in their own place within our app so she could just scroll down to see if she's up to speed on one the shit that she should know.

[DushyantJoshiNewZealand]

I like the approach of the speaker. Nice.

[El_Diablo_]

10:00 I’d talk to professional note takers, like scribes, paralegals, academic paper reviewers, court writers.

32:30

33:40 analytics vs customer interviews

[gaurav]

One important point mentioned at 17:20 is don't ask for features cause you'll design a faster horse and not the actual product.

[SamA-zfsp]

"Design Thinking" is one of the best methodologies to build a user-centric product! I love it.

[manimnaHusna]

The most important point start at 25:41

[MPhilips]

"Like" was uttered 10, 674 times during this video.

[gaurav]

1. Whom will I go talk to = who desperately wants to solve the particular problem
2. Dont dismiss a point made by the user under the assumption that it is only for the specific user and that it does not correlate to the broader set

[pjtlhvf]

8 years later, the show host is now the CEO of the greatest AI company in the world.

[mariamsargsyan]

If you’re building something that is just for you then you don’t need to talk to anyone else. Most startups are not just built for the person that is using them. The first question for any startup is who is my user and where am I going to find them? You don’t want to talk to just one type of person. In interviews you want to stay as far away from features as possible. It is important to talk to many extremes of people. For example, my friends and me did interview in many villages to find out the problems related to greenhouses in order to be able to find a good solution for them and also get to know whether they will use it or not.
If you ask a user if a feature is good they will tell you it is great. You cannot ask if a feature is actually good or not. Get people to give you their credit card and you can guarantee they are interested in the feature. Data doesn’t tell you where you need to go. It doesn’t tell you what the problems are that you need to address. So, be attentive.

[PatrickGrayL]

How do you get your competitor's feedback?

[wasikhan]

The sip at 34:54 should be a gif...like that sip was so tiny why even sip at all?

[AdeelKhan]

"I wish I could tell you who the target user is...there is no recipe. It comes down to thinking really hard and intelligently" (paraphrased)

[PatrickGrayL]

+Carolyn Lincoln From what I can recall from watching the video, he mentioned something about getting competitors comments.

[DomiSiki]

"Don't show them (potential customers) your product, you want to learn what is already in their head, not puting things there" very common mistakes every (excited) startup ceo doing

[rdrocketandduck]

Why this is lecture #16? Well, at least I know it now and I like Emmett (just got a like from Emmett on my random tweet as well). Focus on the gamer & broadcaster not the viewer

[highjinx]

I learned user interviewing techniques like this called the cooper method. If more companies used this method it would save a lot of headaches and create useful products. Why they do not use them baffles me.