Lecture 16 - How to Run a User Interview (Emmett Shear)

I think Stephanie is a really good (insightful) person to conduct User Interviews on 👏👏

This lecture should've been 2nd or 3rd. This seems much more focused on early startup stuff, even though it's near the end of the series.

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Intro: Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch, discusses user interviews 00:25 - Startup mistakes: Avoiding users and building greatness 03:08 - Gaming market insights gained through user interaction 03:38 - Twitchs user insights led to product success 06:25 - Building a lecture-focused notetaking app with user feedback 08:20 - Who to Interview 10:52 - College students, IT administrators, parents, critical users 12:20 - Example User Interview with Stephanie 13:35 - Google Docs vs Evernote for notetaking 14:51 - Notetaking habits for different types of events 15:50 - Questions to Avoid 18:50 - Ideas: One feature on top of Google Docs 21:17 - Google Docs Sticky notetaking, collaborative, mobile 21:45 - Validate 23:50 - Minimum Required to Validate 25:32 - Twitch feedback from broadcasters, not features 29:39 - Talking to Non-Broadcasters helps grow market 34:46 - Common Mistakes 36:30 - Getting Buy-in from Users 37:31 - Do we insist on Skype Interviews for Recording 38:08 - Detective mode vs email interviews 38:41 - International Market: User Interviews 39:46 - Channels: Contacting users via messaging systems and onsite feedback 40:56 - User Feedback Tools: Onsite user feedback vs data-driven feedback 42:06 - Treating Groups 43:08 - Talking to Video Game Industry 45:08 - How do you give good user feedback? 46:16 - Outro

Y'all, I actually followed along with the interactive session in this video so like if anyone is nerdy enough to do the same copy/paste yours as a reply here. We can learn shit, not only passively watch this you know. Figuring out who to talk to for the lecture note-app (07:39) This idea is to build a note-taking app for lectures (online/offline). So, let's see, the key question here I think is 'lectures' which are essentially monolgues. Sometimes meetings turn into monologues as well. So I would interview students (the obvious choice), secretaries (since they probably keep notes during meetings), educators (to ask if they'd like a way to streamline their lectures and team leaders. Summary of the user interview with Stephanie (12:35) The first question he asked was: what are your note taking habits? How are you taking notes today? Then, interjected the girl to ask 'what software do you use to do those things today?' (13:00) seemed like a play to get competitors). She said pen and paper: so like no direct competition or like too hard a competition. Follows that with, do you actually go back and look back at these notes? (Emmett boi is tryna get to the core). The discussion then moved to software and he asked what she uses and she says Google Docs and Evernote (this time we have name ya'll). She said she uses two tools, next question then becomes why two tools? (To be honest, a lot of use use two tools to do one job today it's sad). Anyways, so she said that she uses Google docs when she's working with people and Evernote for solo use and then exclaims 'I wish it was integrated'. To be honest, she'... Next question is 'Do you go back to seeing those notes?'. She says not so much.But then she reveals that she doesn't take notes only in class and outside as well (She may be a poweruser folks). One feature that convinces Stephanie to switch from Google Docs (19:40) It's easy to say integration since she explicitly asked for it. One option is to let her download her evernotes (do they call it that?) to Google Docs via a plugin. But assuming that we have to compete with Google Docs explicity (as Emmett says) by one-upping a feature I would say adding a feature called 'Recall' would do the trick and what that would do is to highlight some areas in her documents and sort in their own place within our app so she could just scroll down to see if she's up to speed on one the shit that she should know.

One important point mentioned at 17:20 is don't ask for features cause you'll design a faster horse and not the actual product.

10:00 I’d talk to professional note takers, like scribes, paralegals, academic paper reviewers, court writers. 32:30 33:40 analytics vs customer interviews

I like the approach of the speaker. Nice.

"Design Thinking" is one of the best methodologies to build a user-centric product! I love it.

This is gem 💎

Useful,thank you!

"Like" was uttered 10,674 times during this video.

8 years later, the show host is now the CEO of the greatest AI company in the world.

The most important point start at 25:41

1. Whom will I go talk to = who desperately wants to solve the particular problem 2. Dont dismiss a point made by the user under the assumption that it is only for the specific user and that it does not correlate to the broader set

If you’re building something that is just for you then you don’t need to talk to anyone else. Most startups are not just built for the person that is using them. The first question for any startup is who is my user and where am I going to find them? You don’t want to talk to just one type of person. In interviews you want to stay as far away from features as possible. It is important to talk to many extremes of people. For example, my friends and me did interview in many villages to find out the problems related to greenhouses in order to be able to find a good solution for them and also get to know whether they will use it or not. If you ask a user if a feature is good they will tell you it is great. You cannot ask if a feature is actually good or not. Get people to give you their credit card and you can guarantee they are interested in the feature. Data doesn’t tell you where you need to go. It doesn’t tell you what the problems are that you need to address. So, be attentive.

22.07 - It is called Google Keep.

Amazing

"I wish I could tell you who the target user is...there is no recipe. It comes down to thinking really hard and intelligently" (paraphrased)

"Don't show them (potential customers) your product, you want to learn what is already in their head, not puting things there" very common mistakes every (excited) startup ceo doing

Why this is lecture #16? Well, at least I know it now and I like Emmett (just got a like from Emmett on my random tweet as well). Focus on the gamer & broadcaster not the viewer