Interviewing, listening, and research communication
Interviewing Users Summary: Better Research Conversations
*Interviewing Users* treats a research conversation as deliberate inquiry: decide what your organization needs to learn, listen beyond its assumptions, and connect an interpretable record of people's experiences to a decision.
One-Sentence Answer
Interviewing Users treats a research conversation as deliberate inquiry: decide what your organization needs to learn, listen beyond its assumptions, and connect an interpretable record of people's experiences to a decision.
What The Book Is About
Steve Portigal explains interviewing as a professional research practice rather than ordinary conversation with a questionnaire attached. The work includes planning, recruiting, fieldwork, documentation, interpretation and making findings useful to the organization that commissioned the research.
The Rosenfeld publisher listing identifies the October 2023 second edition and credits Jamika D. Burge with its foreword; Portigal is the author. This guide covers that edition, rather than treating a later platform listing as a new original publication. The publisher's edition FAQ explains that the revision adds chapters on interpreting and sharing findings and on creating organizational impact.
The book's communication lesson is precise: being comfortable talking does not necessarily make someone good at discovering information. Its five editorial themes below connect the published material to an original library equipment-loan example. They are not the book's official five-step model or a substitute for its ten chapters.
Who Should Read It
Read this if your team interviews people but returns with agreeable quotes rather than a clearer understanding of their lives. It is especially relevant when a proposed feature, service or policy already seems obvious internally and the conversation risks becoming a search for approval.
New researchers can use the book to understand the whole process surrounding an interview. Experienced practitioners may value its attention to the words, actions and organizational circumstances that shape what is learned. A colleague who observes interviews will also understand why useful inquiry can look less efficient than asking every prepared question in order.
Choose another starting point if you principally need a representative estimate, a controlled comparison or a casual networking script. Qualitative interviews can reveal experiences and meanings; a small interview sample does not establish how common they are. Sensitive research also needs appropriate consent, privacy arrangements and professional judgment beyond a general reading guide.
Main Summary
Portigal's central distinction is between talking to people and learning through a designed research encounter. An interviewer arrives with an organizational context, a purpose and assumptions. The participant brings a different context, including routines and meanings the organization may not recognize. Good inquiry makes room for that difference instead of forcing it into a prepared product story.
The book begins by connecting interviews to decisions. A business problem is not the same as a research question, and neither is identical to what the interviewer asks a participant. Keeping those levels separate prevents a conversation from becoming a disguised request for product approval. The method must fit the question; interviews are one approach within a larger research practice.
Listening requires more than recording stated preferences. An account of what someone did, the setting in which it happened and the reasons they attach to it can challenge the team's original framing. Existing workarounds may be satisfactory to their users even when they look inefficient to an outsider. A researcher must investigate that judgment rather than automatically classifying every awkward-looking behavior as a problem to eliminate.
Interpretation is another part of the work. Interview material needs documentation, analysis and synthesis before it can responsibly inform action. A memorable comment should not become a universal finding merely because it fits a presentation. The second edition's additional attention to interpretation and organizational use makes that connection particularly visible.
Our imagined example concerns a library considering a reminder app for borrowed sewing machines. Interviews might reveal forgotten due dates, but they might instead expose transport arrangements or uncertainty about returning accessories. None of those findings is assumed here. The exercise demonstrates how to ask, distinguish evidence from interpretation and decide what further work is needed. The book is useful when a team is willing to learn something that could change its proposed solution, not simply decorate it with customer language.
Key Ideas
1. Separate The Decision, The Research Question And The Interview Prompt
The authorized first chapter distinguishes the organization's problem from the questions guiding research. This matters because a team can ask participants to solve a business decision that the team itself has not defined. Clearer planning gives the interviewer direction while leaving the answer open.
In our library example, the decision might be whether to invest in a reminder app. The research question could concern how borrowers manage the loan period and return the equipment. A participant prompt would ask for an account of a particular loan. These are related, but they do different jobs: one identifies an organizational choice, another names a gap in understanding, and the third opens a conversation.
An editorial preparation exercise is to write those three lines separately. Then inspect whether the participant question already contains the hoped-for solution. Asking which notification someone would prefer presumes that notifications address the problem. Asking what happened after their last borrowing gives the person a chance to describe circumstances the team has not anticipated.
This separation also helps colleagues agree about scope. A project sponsor may need a decision about investment while a researcher wants to investigate a wider service experience. Make that difference discussable before recruitment. The plan can change when evidence warrants it, but it should not begin as several incompatible projects disguised by one list of interview questions. Preparation becomes a shared understanding of the inquiry rather than a polished document nobody uses.
2. Understand A Workaround Before Deciding To Replace It
Portigal challenges the assumption that a researcher simply collects obvious frustrations and converts them into product opportunities. People may tolerate an improvised arrangement because it works well enough in their circumstances. A proposed improvement can require more effort, attention or resources than their existing solution. The interviewer's judgment about elegance is not the user's judgment about usefulness.
Imagine a borrower who writes the sewing-machine return date on a kitchen calendar. A team focused on an app might label this outdated. An attentive interviewer would investigate how the calendar fits the household, who can see it and what happens when plans change. The visible tool is only part of the arrangement. Replacing it with a personal phone alert might remove coordination that the researcher never noticed.
A practical application is to ask for the sequence around an observed workaround. What happened before it was used? What makes it adequate? When does it fail? Keep the language neutral enough that the participant need not defend a supposedly inferior choice. Ask permission before requesting a demonstration or viewing personal materials; access is not an entitlement of research.
The useful outcome is a more accurate problem definition. Perhaps the calendar works and the difficult part is transporting a heavy case during opening hours. Perhaps reminders really are a concern. Both remain possibilities until investigated. The point is not to romanticize every workaround, but to avoid discarding the context that explains why it persists.
3. Make Deliberate Interviewing Choices Instead Of Following Social Defaults
The publisher's FAQ emphasizes that interviewing involves intentional choices about speaking, listening and silence. Ordinary conversation often includes giving advice, supplying a similar personal story or quickly filling a pause. Those habits can be friendly while still diverting a research interview away from the participant's experience.
For the library interviewer, a borrower mentioning an awkward return is not an invitation to describe the interviewer's own difficult errand. A useful next move could be a short request to explain that particular occasion. Stay with the person's sequence long enough to understand what they mean before offering a possible explanation. A pause may allow them to remember an important detail rather than merely signal that you should speak.
Our application is to mark a discussion guide with topics and possible prompts, then treat it as support rather than a performance script. Track which question an answer has already addressed. If a surprising detail matters to the research purpose, follow it instead of repeating a question just because it is next on the page. Record gaps to revisit rather than interrupting every answer.
This does not mean abandoning structure or manipulating people into disclosure. Participants can decline questions, misunderstand them or describe matters outside the study's scope. Explain the research setting and respect those limits. The aim is a more informative encounter in which the interviewer's conversational habits serve inquiry, not a frictionless interaction in which everybody sounds comfortable but little has been learned.
4. Keep An Evidence Trail Between An Account And A Finding
The second edition adds explicit treatment of analysis, synthesis and sharing results. That makes the work after an interview central to the book's value. Recording a compelling statement is not the same as establishing what it means, how it relates to other material or what decision it can support.
Suppose one borrower describes arranging a lift to return a sewing machine. An observation is that this person reports depending on another person's availability. An interpretation might be that transport coordination influences returns. A design hypothesis could concern a different collection arrangement. Those statements have different evidential status. Presenting the hypothesis as if the participant directly requested it would conceal the team's reasoning.
An editorial practice is to keep three adjacent notes: the account or observation, the interpretation and the question that still needs checking. Include the study context and any relevant disagreement. A colleague should be able to understand why the team reached its conclusion without hearing the researcher retell the interview dramatically. Quotations need consent and accurate context; vividness is not permission to reveal identifying information.
A small qualitative study may suggest an important direction without measuring its prevalence. Avoid converting several interviews into a percentage that implies a representative survey. Look for exceptions and competing explanations as well as supporting material. This discipline does not remove interpretation; it makes interpretation visible enough to challenge, refine and connect responsibly to the decision the research was designed to inform.
5. Prepare The Organization To Use What The Interviews Reveal
An interview can be conducted carefully and still have little effect if nobody has decided how its findings will enter a decision. The second edition's chapter on research impact addresses this organizational side of the practice. The problem is not solved simply by creating a more attractive findings presentation after everyone has committed to a solution.
In the library example, staff may already have different explanations for late returns. Some may expect an app, others a clearer lending agreement, and others changes to collection arrangements. Discuss those assumptions before interviewing. Name the decision owner, the point at which evidence will be considered and what could still change. An interview plan cannot promise influence over a decision that has effectively been closed.
Our application is to agree on a modest evidence-to-decision meeting before fieldwork begins. Bring the original question, documented accounts, interpretations and unresolved issues. Separate what the study can support from what needs operational, financial or broader quantitative evidence. A person who observed an interview should contribute their perspective without treating one encounter as the entire study.
When findings suggest a wider problem, connect it to the original scope rather than announcing that the team investigated the wrong thing and must start again. Explain the initial issue and the broader possibility separately. The organization may act on one before the other. Research communication is successful when it helps people make an informed choice, including a choice to stop, delay or investigate further rather than launch the planned feature.
Practical Takeaways
- Before recruiting anyone, write the organizational decision, research question and participant prompt as separate statements. Check that the last one does not assume the proposed feature is useful.
- Ask about a particular occasion before requesting a general opinion. Record what happened, the context and what the participant says it meant, while recognizing that recollection has limits.
- When a workaround looks awkward, investigate what it accomplishes before suggesting a replacement. Convenience to the designer and usefulness to the participant may differ.
- Practise one conversational choice at a time: a clearer follow-up, a less leading prompt or leaving a pause. Do not judge an interview solely by whether every prepared question was asked.
- Separate observations, interpretations and proposed responses in your notes. This makes a colleague's challenge more productive than arguing about which interview felt most convincing.
- Explain the purpose of recording and obtain appropriate permission. Agree how identifiable accounts will be handled before distributing clips or quotations inside the organization.
- End the study with a decision discussion, not merely a file delivery. State what the interviews support, what remains uncertain and which additional evidence the next choice requires.
How To Apply It
An Original Equipment-Loan Research Exercise
Consider a fictional library lending sewing machines. Several loans have been returned later than staff expected, and a manager proposes a reminder app. This is an editorial exercise, not an account from Portigal's book or a tested service intervention.
Start by defining the decision. Is the library considering software expenditure, a change in its lending process or both? Record the assumptions behind the app proposal without presenting them as findings. The research question might ask how people organize borrowing, use and returning the equipment within the rest of their week.
Next, prepare an invitation that explains the conversation and makes participation voluntary. Ask a borrower to describe a recent loan, beginning with why they wanted the machine. Follow the sequence through collection, use, storage, planning the return and returning the accessories. Do not require a particular explanation for lateness or imply that a borrower is being investigated for misconduct.
During the interview, note the terms that need clarification. A borrower saying that the return was inconvenient could mean several things: a journey, an opening time, moving the machine or uncertainty about what belongs in the case. Ask what happened on that occasion. These are possible lines of inquiry, not conclusions about actual library users.
Afterwards, write one short record that distinguishes the person's account from your interpretation. Compare it with the research question. If it changes the problem you think matters, describe the new possibility and what would be needed to investigate it. Do not make a general claim about all borrowers from one conversation.
At the decision meeting, put the app proposal beside the evidence rather than treating it as the inevitable conclusion. The team might need more interviews, a process observation, a small operational trial or representative information about return patterns. An interview can improve the question without providing the final answer. That is useful progress, provided its limits remain visible.
Notable Ideas, Paraphrased
- An apparently ordinary conversation can require a very deliberate professional practice when its purpose is to learn.
- A business decision, a research question and a question spoken to a participant should not be collapsed into one.
- A solution that looks makeshift may fit someone's circumstances better than the improvement an outsider imagines.
- Interpretation and organizational use are part of research, not optional decoration added after the interviews.
These are paraphrased themes and editorial applications, not quotations or an official numbered framework from the book.
Original Value: When This Book Is Most Useful
The strongest use case is a team that is genuinely uncertain about people's experiences but already has the power to build something. That combination creates a temptation to interpret polite feedback as evidence for a preferred design. Portigal offers a more demanding standard for the conversation and for what happens around it.
Use the library exercise to inspect your own project: could a participant describe a situation that would change your plan? If the honest answer is no, first clarify whether the encounter is research, evaluation of a fixed design or communication about a decision already made. Each can be legitimate, but they require different promises to participants and colleagues.
Best Related Books
- The Mom Test offers a compact companion for founders trying to learn from customer conversations. Compare its emphasis on avoiding misleading feedback with Portigal's wider research process, rather than assuming either book supplies a universal rule for every question.
- Talk to Me approaches interviewing through journalism and conversations with writers. Choose it when the principal task is a public-facing interview; choose Portigal when the account must inform a product or service decision.
- Humble Inquiry explores asking with genuine curiosity across workplace relationships. It supports the interpersonal stance, while Portigal provides a more specific structure for a research project.
- The Lost Art of Connecting is relevant when the central task is building relationships rather than generating research findings. Warmth and useful inquiry can overlap, but their purposes should remain explicit.