An Empirical Study: Best Practices in UX Interviewing

• Rolf Molich

  DialogDesign

  Author

• Gregory A. Hamilton

  BORN

  Author

• Melissa Paluch

  Independent Research Consultant

  Author

This study examined how experienced UX professionals conduct semi-structured UX interviews in real-world settings. Our aim was to improve existing guidelines for UX interviewing. We analyzed a corpus of 20 interviews with front-end developers, each conducted by one of seven independent teams of experienced UX professionals. 

After completing the interviews, we developed a set of guidelines from practitioner literature to benchmark our analysis of the interview transcripts. Seven foundational textbooks yielded 64 actionable guidelines, which we grouped into these categories: flow, structure, rapport, participant-centered focus, and eliciting rich data.

We then selected seven of the 20 interviews for an in-depth examination of how well they complied with the benchmark. The deviations highlighted many useful practices but also recurring tensions between prescriptive guidance and real-world interviewing. For example, some interviewers improvised exemplary follow-up questions, yet others changed correctly phrased interview questions into leading, compound, hypothetical, or long-winded questions that occasionally altered the interview’s trajectory.

This study provides the UX community with evidence-based tips, 64 guidelines derived from recognized textbooks, and 15 new guidelines to support the training and professional development of UX interviewers.

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1. Rolf Molich, DialogDesign

   Rolf Molich has been an independent usability consultant since 1993. He is a founding member and former VP of the User Experience Qualification Board, UXQB. Rolf received lifetime achievement awards from both the UXPA and the German UPA for his work on heuristics and the Comparative Usability Evaluation (CUE) studies.

2. Gregory A. Hamilton, BORN

   Greg Hamilton has served as Research Director at BORN, Mad*Pow, and Tech Mahindra, specializing in human factors engineering and service design. A member of HFES, UXPA, and EPIC, he chaired the HFES Digital Therapeutics track. He holds an MS in Human Factors in Information Design from Bentley University.

3. Melissa Paluch, Independent Research Consultant

   Melissa Paluch is a research contractor specializing in quantitative and qualitative research, survey design, and program evaluation. She holds an MA in Sociology from George Mason University and graduate certificates from George Washington University and Portland State University. Her work supports public, nonprofit, and academic organizations through evidence-based research.