Interviews

Persona interviews in Xpec allow you to have realistic, AI-powered conversations with your user personas. These interviews help you understand user needs, validate assumptions, and extract valuable insights for product development.

What are Persona Interviews?

Persona interviews are interactive conversations where you can:

• Ask questions about user workflows and challenges
• Explore scenarios where users would interact with your product
• Validate assumptions about user needs and preferences
• Discover pain points in current user experiences
• Test feature ideas before development begins

Each interview maintains the persona's character, background, and context, providing realistic responses based on their profile.

Types of Interview Modes

Exploration Mode

Purpose: Open-ended discovery of user needs and workflows Best for: Early product development, understanding user context Approach: Ask broad questions about current processes and challenges

Example Questions:

• "Walk me through your typical workday"
• "What's the most frustrating part of your current process?"
• "How do you currently handle [specific task]?"
• "What would make your life easier in this area?"

Validation Mode

Purpose: Test specific assumptions or feature ideas Best for: Mid-development validation, feature prioritization Approach: Ask specific questions about features, workflows, or design decisions

Example Questions:

• "How would you expect this feature to work?"
• "What concerns would you have about this approach?"
• "Which of these options would you prefer and why?"
• "How often would you use this feature?"

Starting Your First Interview

Setting Up an Interview

1. Navigate to Interviews - Go to the main Interviews page or product-specific interviews
2. Select a Persona - Choose which persona to interview
3. Choose Mode - Select Exploration or Validation mode
4. Start Conversation - Begin with an opening question

Effective Opening Questions

For Exploration Mode:

• "Can you tell me about your role and typical responsibilities?"
• "What are the biggest challenges you face in your work?"
• "Walk me through how you currently [accomplish specific goal]"

For Validation Mode:

• "I'd like to get your thoughts on a feature we're considering..."
• "How do you currently handle [specific situation]?"
• "What would need to be true for you to switch from your current solution?"

Conducting Effective Interviews

Question Techniques

Open-Ended Questions

• Start with "How", "Why", "What", "Tell me about"
• Avoid yes/no questions that limit responses
• Allow for detailed, contextual answers

Follow-Up Probes

• "Can you tell me more about that?"
• "Why is that important to you?"
• "What would happen if that didn't work?"
• "How often does this occur?"

Scenario-Based Questions

• "Imagine you're trying to [accomplish task], walk me through that"
• "What would you do if [specific situation] happened?"
• "How would this fit into your existing workflow?"

Best Practices for Interview Questions

Do This ✅

• Ask about current behavior and actual experiences
• Focus on specific examples rather than hypotheticals
• Dig deeper with follow-up questions
• Ask about workarounds and current solutions
• Listen for emotional responses and frustrations

Avoid This ❌

• Leading questions that suggest "right" answers
• Asking about features instead of problems
• Making assumptions about what personas want
• Jumping to solutions before understanding problems
• Asking only positive questions

Interview Management

Organizing Your Interviews

Interview List

• View all interviews across products
• Filter by persona, mode, or date
• Search interview content for specific topics
• Track interview completion status

Interview Details

• See full conversation history
• Review extracted insights
• Add notes or comments
• Mark interviews as finalized

Interview Workflow

Preparation

1. Review persona details before starting
2. Prepare 3-5 key questions you want to explore
3. Consider what assumptions you want to test
4. Have follow-up questions ready

During the Interview

1. Ask open-ended questions first
2. Listen carefully to responses
3. Ask follow-up questions to dig deeper
4. Take notes on surprising or important points
5. Explore tangents that seem valuable

After the Interview

1. Review the conversation for key insights
2. Extract important quotes and findings
3. Mark the interview as finalized
4. Apply insights to specifications or product decisions

Finalizing Interviews

When you're satisfied with an interview:

1. Click "Finalize Interview"
2. Review any automatically extracted insights
3. Add manual notes if needed
4. The interview becomes read-only but searchable

Advanced Interview Techniques

Multi-Session Interviews

Building on Previous Conversations

• Reference earlier interview sessions
• Ask follow-up questions about previous topics
• Test changes based on prior feedback
• Track persona opinion evolution over time

Conversation Continuity

• Xpec remembers previous conversations with each persona
• Build on established context and relationships
• Refer to earlier discussions naturally
• Develop deeper understanding over multiple sessions

Specialized Interview Types

Feature Validation Interviews

• Present specific feature concepts
• Ask about expected behavior and workflows
• Test feature naming and terminology
• Validate feature priority and frequency of use

Competitive Analysis Interviews

• Ask about current tools and solutions
• Understand switching costs and motivations
• Identify gaps in existing solutions
• Discover unique value propositions

Journey Mapping Interviews

• Walk through entire user journeys
• Identify touchpoints and decision moments
• Understand emotional highs and lows
• Map out current vs. ideal experiences

Cross-Persona Analysis

Comparing Responses

• Interview multiple personas on the same topics
• Identify common themes and divergent needs
• Understand how different user types approach problems
• Balance conflicting requirements in product decisions

Segment-Specific Insights

• Focus on patterns within user segments
• Identify unique needs for different personas
• Understand when to create persona-specific features
• Balance broad appeal with targeted solutions

Insight Extraction

Automatic Insight Generation

Xpec automatically identifies insights from interviews:

• Pattern Recognition - Common themes across conversations
• Pain Point Identification - Specific frustrations mentioned
• Feature Requests - Explicit or implicit feature needs
• Workflow Understanding - How users actually complete tasks

Manual Insight Curation

Reviewing Auto-Generated Insights

• Validate automatically extracted insights
• Add context and additional details
• Combine related insights
• Prioritize insights by importance

Creating Custom Insights

• Extract insights missed by automation
• Add insights from conversation subtext
• Include emotional or behavioral insights
• Document surprising or counterintuitive findings

Applying Insights to Product Development

Immediate Application

• Use insights in current specification development
• Reference specific quotes in requirements
• Validate existing feature designs
• Adjust development priorities

Long-term Integration

• Build insights into product roadmap planning
• Create insight-driven user stories
• Include insights in team knowledge sharing
• Track insight impact on user satisfaction

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Unrealistic Responses

Problem: Persona responses seem scripted or unhelpful Solutions:

• Ask more specific questions about current workflows
• Focus on concrete examples rather than general preferences
• Ask about edge cases and problem scenarios
• Probe deeper into the "why" behind responses

Generic Insights

Problem: Extracted insights are too broad or obvious Solutions:

• Ask more detailed follow-up questions
• Focus on specific user contexts and scenarios
• Explore emotional responses and frustrations
• Look for surprising or counterintuitive findings

Limited Response Depth

Problem: Persona gives short, surface-level answers Solutions:

• Use open-ended questions instead of yes/no questions
• Ask for specific examples: "Can you give me an example of when that happened?"
• Probe with "Why is that important to you?"
• Ask about current workarounds and solutions

Integration with Other Features

Specifications

• Reference interview findings in specifications
• Include persona quotes in requirements
• Use insights to generate user stories
• Validate specifications against interview data

Personas

• Interviews help validate and refine persona accuracy
• Update persona details based on interview learnings
• Use interviews to fill in persona knowledge gaps
• Evolve personas based on interview insights

Insights

• Interviews are the primary source of actionable insights
• Multiple interviews contribute to insight validation
• Track which interviews generated which insights
• Use insights to guide future interview questions

Advanced Tips and Strategies

Research Planning

Interview Roadmap

1. Discovery Phase - Broad exploration interviews with each persona
2. Validation Phase - Test specific assumptions and features
3. Refinement Phase - Iterate on solutions based on feedback
4. Testing Phase - Validate final concepts before development

Question Banks

• Maintain lists of proven questions by topic
• Customize questions for different persona types
• Include follow-up questions for common responses
• Update questions based on interview success rates

Quality Assurance

Interview Quality Checklist

• ✅ Asked open-ended questions
• ✅ Probed deeper with follow-ups
• ✅ Focused on current behavior, not hypotheticals
• ✅ Explored specific examples and scenarios
• ✅ Listened for emotional responses
• ✅ Avoided leading questions
• ✅ Extracted actionable insights

Team Collaboration

Sharing Interview Findings

• Create interview summaries for team reviews
• Share key quotes and insights in meetings
• Include interview findings in specification reviews
• Present insights to stakeholders for validation

Collaborative Interview Analysis

• Review interviews with team members
• Discuss insights and implications together
• Challenge assumptions based on interview data
• Align team understanding of user needs

Remember: Great interviews come from great questions. Focus on understanding the "why" behind user behavior, and always dig deeper than the first response you receive.