How to ask the right questions

TL;DR

Summary

What kind of questions should I ask in an interview, and in which case?

Goal

Ask especially relevant questions depending on the situation.

Introduction

There are 3 types of interviews:

• Open, unguided, or non-directive interview
• Semi-guided or semi-directive interview
• Guided or directive interview

Open, unguided, or non-directive interview

The open interview is the hardest type to handle. There are no questions to prepare. The interviewer simply prepares one or several themes to bring to the participant.

The open interview leans heavily on the interviewer’s ability to keep the conversation going. Active listening is incredibly effective for that, especially in the context of exploratory interviews. It’s the technique you’ll lean on heavily for user research.

These interviews are favored for so-called qualitative studies (which describe an experience or a viewpoint by producing verbatim quotes).

Semi-guided or semi-directive interview

The semi-guided interview comes with an interview guide that’s relatively light (about 8 open questions for a 1-hour interview). The interviewer aims to address all the themes they prepared and digs in by following up on the participant’s answers. Now and then, the interviewer will address topics that weren’t planned. These interviews are favored for qualitative studies.

Active listening is again essential in this type of interview. Semi-guided interviews are also used in the context of exploratory interviews, generally on the last third of the participants you’ll meet. After exploring widely with open interviews, you sometimes need to come back to topics you didn’t dig into enough — that’s when the semi-guided interview comes in!

Guided or directive interview

The guided interview comes with an interview guide that looks more like a questionnaire. The questions are generally closed (yes/no answers) or multiple-choice. These interviews are favored for quantitative studies (which prove facts by producing numbers) because they let you run a statistical analysis of the results.

Rigor is essential for the interviewer because they have to ask the questions in the established order and in the same way for every participant. Most of the time, this type of interview gives way to an online survey.

Which questions for which interview?

About questioning

To ask good questions, you need to be in a posture of curiosity:

• ALWAYS assume that you’re going to learn something from the other person, that the other person knows something you don’t.

Distinguish questioning from interrogation:

• Interrogation tries to verify that the other person knows the answer.
• It generally puts them on the defensive.
• And you learn very little.
• Questioning has no preconceived idea in mind.
• So you can be authentically interested in the other person’s answer.

Strongly favor open questions to keep the conversation going.

Questions for an open interview

Here you’re addressing one or several themes. Here are 2 elegant examples to kick off your interview:

• What does … bring to mind for you?
• What comes to mind when I mention …

The other questions are tied to active listening techniques. On top of reflecting back and pauses, here’s a selection of questions that can help you:

• To ask for more detail
• The last time you did that / saw that, what happened?
• Could you describe that more concretely for me?
• I didn’t quite get that, could you tell me more?
• To question the emotions
• How did you feel at that moment?
• How did you experience it?
• Did that situation freak you out?
• You sounded annoyed when you talked about that, did it bother you?
• That seemed to make you really happy, could you tell me more?
• Did you run into any issues in that situation?
• Was there anything that went particularly well?

In the context of exploratory interviews, you should only ask questions about lived experience (no “what would you like to have?” or “what do you think of…?”) and you should only ask questions in the past tense (see above, to dig into emotions). Reflecting back or digging into details can be done in the present tense.

Questions for a semi-guided interview

When preparing the interview guide, make sure you only write open questions. In general, 8 questions can fill an hour-long interview.

To phrase your questions well, try to ban “why” (it tends to put people on the defensive) and favor other phrasings:

• Questions starting with “how”
• Questions about the “what”: about what / toward what / in what / on what / after what / with what / …
• Questions about the “which”: for which / at which / toward which …

Favor questions in the past tense — the answers will always be more interesting. If you find it useful to have projection questions, ask them at the end of the interview. It matters to make clear when you’re trying to understand the experience of the person in front of you and when you’re trying to get their opinion.

Here’s an example of an interview guide for an “IoT architect” interview, with technical profiles working in the connected devices space. You’ll see I’m progressive in my questions to gradually arrive at “business model,” which is the topic I want to dig into. The questions with 1-to-5 scores aren’t mandatory, but they’re an effective way to gather knowledge about feelings while keeping the person talking.

• What’s the latest “IoT” or “connected solution” project you worked on? What was your role on it?
• What deliverables have you already created during the framing phase? Was there one deliverable that was more effective than the others?
• Did you build a business model of the solution during the framing phase? Which tools did you use to do this?
• On a scale of 1 to 5, how useful is it to create a business model for your IoT solution as early as the framing phase?
• On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with the way the relevant stakeholders understand your business model?
• On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with the way the relevant stakeholders use your business model?
• Did you closely collaborate with architects during this framing phase? How did you feel about that collaboration?
• Have you ever felt a need to collaborate better with your architects? Could you tell me more about that need?
• Did you run into any other problems during the framing phase of your IoT project?

All the techniques from the open interview should be reused to keep the discussion going.

Questions for a guided interview

For a guided interview, prioritize closed questions. The following phrasings are the ones to favor:

• “Who,” “when,” “where” questions
• When did you receive this package?
• Where did you receive this package?
• Multiple-choice questions
• Do you want to act, or would you rather wait a bit?
• Do you prefer option A, option B, or option C?
• Do you feel more annoyed or more energized by this event?
• Yes/no questions:
• Did you enjoy it?
• Are you angry?
• Did you receive this package?

The techniques from the open interview should be avoided here, since the goal isn’t to follow up on what the person says but to gather data you can compare against everyone else’s.

Going further

• Exploratory interviews: to put these questions into practice.
• Active listening: the mindset behind good questions.
• Understanding emotions: to go beyond the words.