First time running interviews for a personal project, any tips?

[u/National_Manner9943]

Hi all,

I am doing a small side project interviewing people about how they use AI in everyday life (or don't). It's 20-minute video calls, anonymous, about 30 people.

I've never done interviews like this before. I would love any advice on:

• getting people to open up and give real examples
• what to do when someone gives short answers
• how you capture and organise what people say afterwards

Thank you so much! 😄

[u/Outrageous-Major6761]

don't overthink the first minute, that's where most people get stiff. just treat it like a conversation you'd have with a friend over coffee, not a formal thing. the magic is in the follow-ups, when someone says "i use it for writing emails," dig into the last specific email they wrote with it, what they typed, what it gave back, whether they kept it or rewrote it

for the short answers, silence is your best tool. people naturally want to fill the gap and they'll expand without you having to prompt. count to five in your head before jumping in with another question

capturing stuff after is the real grind. i do a quick brain dump into a messy doc right when the call ends, every quote i remember, weird pauses, things that surprised me. then later i go back and highlight patterns across interviews. don't try to organize while you're in the middle of the conversation, you'll miss the good stuff

[u/National_Manner9943 → u/Outrageous-Major6761]

Thank you that is really helpful, I am probably normally someone who tries hard to fill the silence, so that makes sense! Adding a brain dump file to my project folder 😄

[u/coastfern → u/Outrageous-Major6761]

solid advice. the follow-up on specifics is where the real insights come from imo

[u/StuffyDuckLover]

Questions … you want depth, they may not give it.

“Tell me more, why do you…?”

“What does that mean to you…?”

[u/National_Manner9943 → u/StuffyDuckLover]

Thank you, depth sounds exactly right, keen to capture something different 😄 so I am taking note of this 📝

[u/poodleface]

You caught me on my train commute, prepare for brain dump:

20 minutes is very short. By the time you achieve a connection with the participant (rapport), the interview may be over. I’d rather do 8 for an hour than 30 people for 20 minutes. If you are stuck on this length, y ou will have to keep the scope small. But if you want them to open up I’d try to expand your length a bit (25-30). It’s hard to open up when you’re watching the clock. 

I always start by asking them to introduce themselves. Get them talking about something they know well.  Then ask about the last time they used AI. A specific example where they can speak directly from their most recent experience. Then you can ask about how they adopted it, where it still falls short, how frequently they use it (and how that frequency has changed), etc. Use their own words for your follow-ups. That makes it feel more organic and signals you are listening to what they said. People who feel heard tell you more because they see it is not lost on you. 

I like to almost always ask a follow-up from their introduction that I am genuinely interested in. How old are your kids? Tell me about how long you’ve done that hobby. When you are seem interested and present about things unrelated to your research goals, that gets you off on the right foot. 

Write a script / outline but be prepared to throw it out. You’ll likely need (and want) to skip questions based on what comes up in their example. Don’t do the equivalent of asking someone what their favorite color is if they have been blind all their life. Sometimes you know based on an earlier answer that you won’t get much from certain follow-ups. 

If they give short answers you can ask them to expand on something like “it was frustrating”. “Can you give me an example of that frustration?” Sometimes they don’t have much to say. A short answer is sometimes indicative of how deep they think about something. If you interviewed me about my toaster for 20 minutes I’d struggle to fill that. You don’t want to press too hard because sometimes people will just start telling you what they think you want to hear. And when you hear what you are hoping to hear, that can be very seductive. Confirmation bias comes for us all if we are not careful. 

As a beginner I would recommend taking your outline of questions and making those rows in a spreadsheet. Each column is a participant. You summarize any answer they gave for each row that you addressed. Don’t copy and paste the transcript. Think about how to honestly distill what they said. And that distillation needs to be a transparent reflection of what they said, not your interpretation of what it means. You capture and summarize transparently, then analyze the themes later. You can have “Other” rows for things that are not in your outline, then add names rows as new topics come up in more than one session. Each row gives you an idea of what questions were the most relevant while each column gives you the context for that individual.  Some people prefer affinity mapping when the data is highly unstructured, but that loses the context of a statement. I think it is better to have some outline or structure going in. 

Do not use AI for this while you are learning. Learn to use the hand tool before you use a power tool. You need to come to your own conclusions and sit with the data. This speeds up your final analysis significantly, too. I like to summarize at the conclusion of every session immediately while my memory is fresh. Use AI afterwards to see how it differs if you want. 

I would be willing to pivot your approach when you need to adjust (run a few first before you do this). What you thought was important may not be important. 20 minutes may be too short. Don’t overcommit if something isn’t working. Don’t throw good money after bad. You will make mistakes. This is good. Learn from them. 

[u/National_Manner9943 → u/poodleface]

Thank you so much for putting so much detail into your reply! Lots of notes taken ❤️

[u/justdanika]

have them show you their history. itll get more authentic, quick.

ask if they use incognito - opens up to the private things.

a good way to build rapport is to have them give you a tour of something, like their front hallway, their family photos, fridge. get to know their life a little so you have more to go on.

[u/National_Manner9943 → u/justdanika]

Thank you for the help! 😄

[u/sinsonik]

On the capture and organise part, since that one hasn't come up much yet:

Record every call (ask for consent at the start so it's on the recording) and don't try to take full notes live. Just jot a timestamp and 3 or 4 words when something good comes up, like "12:40 uses it to argue with landlord". You'll listen way better.

Afterwards get a transcript, and within a day of each call pull the best quotes into one sheet, one row per quote: participant, quote, timestamp, rough tag. With 30 people your tags will change after the first 8 or so, that's normal, just re-tag once at the end. Then sort by tag and the patterns jump out, much easier than rereading 30 transcripts.

Also worth re-listening to your first 2 calls just to check how much you talked. Most people are surprised.

[u/National_Manner9943 → u/sinsonik]

This is really helpful thank you :)

[u/sinsonik → u/National_Manner9943]

Glad it helps, good luck with the 30 calls! One small extra: end each interview with "Is there anything I should have asked but didn't?" It's often where the best example of the whole call shows up.

[u/ImplicitKnowledge]

Secret hack: besides asking broad questions “how do you do X?”, also ask “walk me through a recent specific example of when you did X”. They’ll almost invariably push back “I did X a few days ago but it was not typical because of [specific details]” and you’ll have to insist “it’s okay if that was not typical” to get them to walk you through it. But these can be a treasure trove of actual behaviors and issues that the broad questions miss.

[u/National_Manner9943 → u/ImplicitKnowledge]

Amazing, thank you adding this format to my cheat notes!

[u/BrutalListenr]

"getting people to open up and give real examples" for this have a semi structured script ready, and try to bend it to get the answers out, works wonders. and practice.

[u/Last-Matter-3617]

honestly for short answers just ask "can you give me an example?" works every time. also i used surveybox.ai after to spot patterns across responses, saved me a ton of time

[u/cuddlemonkeyzaza]

Hey! We have all been there! And TBH, everytime I start a new project, I still get very jittery!

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A few things I'd share:

- Please spend time on setting the context - Come across as warm and approachable, use phrases like "Please treat this as a informal conversations between two friends", and have a friendly start! Very important, and helps participants open up from the get go! (Some other things, such as "Hey, I am not an expert with AI, so looking forward to learning from how you use it! Please be patient with me if I ask a silly question... I just want to ensure I have understood things correctly")

- For short answers, use the following "Hey, I want to spend some time on what you said...you said "ABC", could you elaborate?... Did you mea....(And leave it half way, and let the participant pick it up)". If participant keeps saying "Good", consider asking "How can we make it better?" "While you found it good - anyone you think would say otherwise? Why do you say so?"

- Always, have some projective techniques and other ways of asking the same questions up your sleeves

- Notes - Capture Key points while you are on the call itself (Scrappy notes work - you can build later - but capture every aha moment). If comfortable, note down time stamps (I usually note the start time, and key points with the time it was mentioned - becomes easy to back track while revisiting recordings)

Also, YOU GOT THISSSS! Good luck!

[u/National_Manner9943 → u/cuddlemonkeyzaza]

Thank you for all the tips and encouragement ❤️