Cohort 3

Hands-on practice & expert guidance to 10x your interview skills. Get insights that power smart, data-driven product & design decisions.

Elizabeth Creighton, PhD

Founder, Brazen UX

User Interview Skills for Designers & PMs

Shopify.com

Mozilla

Instacart

Any designer or product manager can run a user interview. It’s really not rocket science. Pick up the phone, call up a customer, ask them some questions -- bam, there’s your interview. Running great interviews, though? That takes training and practice. Even those with the best intentions and the most motivation need some help if they want to do it right. I’ve worked with dozens of designers, developers, and product managers who are pumped about talking to users, but then… ...they spend tons of time and energy reaching out to people, but can't convince them to sign up for interviews…they ask leading questions that will only ever get them the answers they want to hear.&nbsp;…they focus on simply validating the ideas they already think are great rather than testing their assumptions about what users need in the first place.&nbsp;…they get nervous and rush through the interview, barely even listening to what the participant has to say.…they struggle to sift through all their data to synthesize the key insights...they miss opportunities to make an impact on their product because they can't persuade stakeholders to take action. In this 3-week course, you'll learn to run interviews just like a veteran user researcher. Through expert advice, personalized feedback, and plenty of of hands-on practice, you'll develop the skills you need to plan, execute, analyze, and document your interviews effectively -- so you can translate your hard work into evidence-based impact on product management &amp; design decisions.

Deeply understand your users so you can build things that solve their problems ✨

Designers who want to upskill by becoming proficient in one of the most useful &amp; versatile user research methods.

Product managers who need to deeply understand their users so that what they build next meets their needs &amp; solves their problems.

Early-career UX researchers looking for the hands-on practice &amp; expert advice they need to level-up their interview skills.

This course is for...

You'll get...

<ul><li>Evaluate potential interview topics on multiple criteria to choose the ones that are highest priority</li><li>Write lightweight, useful, shareable research plans</li></ul>

A proven playbook for planning your interviews

<ul><li>Figure out the ideal number of participants to recruit</li><li>Learn multiple recruiting strategies that vary in scrappy-ness</li><li>Get people to actually commit to signing up</li><li>Create an automated scheduling flow</li></ul>

Step-by-step guidance for finding & recruiting participants

<ul><li>Write thoughtful, useful, non-leading questions to get unbiased answers</li><li>Create a natural "flow" for both you and the participant</li><li>Figure out the tech setup that works best for you</li></ul>

Hands-on practice & specific frameworks to structure your interviews for maximum impact

<ul><li>Quickly build rapport with participants and make them feel at ease</li><li>Deal with "too chatty" or "too quiet" participants effectively and gracefully</li></ul>

Actionable tips for making participants feel comfortable, appreciated, and willing to share

<ul><li>Conduct real interviews with your peers during a live workshop</li><li>Dig deep into needs and pain points without biasing participants' answers</li><li>Ask follow-up questions that reveal thoughts, feelings, emotions, and motivations</li><li>Read body language and other nonverbal cues</li></ul>

In-class "lightning" interviews to build confidence with techniques and best practices

<ul><li>An easy-to-follow framework for synthesizing insights from data</li><li>Hands-on practice applying the framework on real data</li><li>Info and recommendations for the latest AI analysis tools</li></ul>

In-class analysis exercises that use real data collected by you

<ul><li>Create research documents that people actually want to read</li><li>Translate insights into recommendations and next steps</li><li>Get buy-in from stakeholders to take action on what you learned</li><li>Make an impact on business decisions through research YOU spearheaded</li></ul>

Strategies for documenting, sharing, and inspiring action

<ul><li>Practice time built into nearly every live session</li><li>A safe space to experiment and find what works best for you</li><li>Fast feedback from your peers and the instructor</li></ul>

Confidence built through hands-on practice

<ul><li>Templates and scripts I use in my own research</li><li>Examples of real documents I have created for clients</li><li>Curated resources from my favourite research thought leaders</li></ul>

Downloadable resources to give you a head start

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

Course syllabus

Fmr. Senior Director, Firefox UX @ Mozilla

Manager, Product Design & UXR @ StackAdapt

What product & design leaders are saying

Meet your instructor

Interactive workshops where we'll talk through concepts and case studies + complete short activities designed to help you solidify what you've learned.

Monday & Wednesday

We'll use this time for review, questions, and additional feedback.

Thursday

Short written assignments that challenge you to apply what you've learned.

Weekly projects

Course schedule

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Active hands-on learning

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Interactive and project-based

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

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About this course

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