User-interviewing skills I picked up from my therapist
On one hand, interviewing users for research is WILDLY different from providing therapy. On the other hand, talking to humans empathetically with set purposes, has overlaps.
1. Knowing there is no shortcut to making someone feel heard.
I gotta forget everything else and actually, genuinely hear them with empathetic curiosity. And once I do, it shows, on my face, body language, my words. And it makes a difference.
2. Believing that everybody makes sense in their internal worldview.
It’s not important that we think they’re wrong, it’s important what combination of internal logic, external environment, and past experience made them arrive here, including misconceptions, lack of opportunity to gain some information.
3. Doing the opposite, when all I want is for somebody to move past an emotion
Stop trying to move on, listen to them, ask them about it, and validate the emotion, then validate it some more, not in platitudes, but by actually empathising. for as long as that takes. In my experience it is both excruciatingly long, yet surprisingly fast.
4. Observing and verbalising the unsaid meta layers of the conversation
My therapist often says “I’m sensing there’s a ___, is that correct?”,
Sometimes there’s an emotion visible that they are not including in their words, or a larger belief or context that seems to be lurking in the peripheries. Pointing it out makes them aware of it and expound on that layer.
5. Assuming there are hidden layers and not filling in gaps with assumptions
The amount of times my therapist has gone ‘Aha’ at something I thought was obvious.
People will talk at length and skip all the things that are obvious details to them, but important puzzle pieces to me. It’s so easy to rationalise away the small bit that didn’t make sense, to fill in the logic from our prior assumptions. Especially when there’s a DG to get through. But the little inconsistencies, the un-asked why’s are the little holes that help dig to the deeper layers.
5. Getting curious if somebody keeps talking about an unimportant thing
Sometimes they simply haven’t understood what I’m looking for. But sometimes there’s an internal logic linking what they’re saying to what I’m asking. Whereas, sometimes I’m the one asking the wrong question, and they are gifting me with the right answers nonetheless.
6. Leaving some of my human-ness behind
Therapy and interviewing both require a purpose-driven persona. While empathy and rapport-building do happen through a shared humanness with the person in front of me, I leave behind some parts of me, like my worldviews, personal opinions and some cultural values, most of my own emotions, and my usual needs and urges of human conversations, eg., my need to feel heard, or to have equal participation.
8. Leading a conversation without dominating it
Asking good questions, probing further into a point they seem ready to move on from, anchoring later questions to their previous responses, explaining the curiosity behind my questions that seem unnecessary (without leading or projecting)—all help me organically lead the conversation to high-impact places.
7. Practicing patience. All the patience.
The patience to not fill silences, to wait for them to arrive at their point, to let them digress occasionally, to not correct them or talk over them, to hear their out-of-scope complaints, to not defend myself, to not try to convince them of anything, to not rush to fix a misunderstanding but explore its origins first.
9. Knowing the importance of caring about somebody’s experience
Most of us don’t have nearly enough of that in our lives. If somebody feels like you truly care about what they have to say, they will open up, and walk away gratified. Even if the topic is the driest parts of their job.
User-interviewing skills are life skills really. The ability to be a good listener, to lead a conversation without dominating it, to dig into deeper layers, to empathise and come with curiosity, to ask good questions—these have enriched a lot of my conversations, professional and personal.