"Customers do not know what they want" - This is a myth! I believe most of our customers are aware what might add value to their product. Where they fail is to articulate their wants and map them to their latent needs.
A typical question and answer format based contextual interview may not be the most suitable way to gauge a customers latent needs. So here we introduce "Empathy Interviews"
How is an Empathy Interview different than a traditional Q&A based Contextual Inquiry?
Empathy interviewing focuses on the emotional and subconscious aspect of an audience’s actions by revealing why they behave a certain way. The role of the moderator is to understand the bigger motives behind a certain customer action.
Example:
Interview question: “Recall your last online shopping experience. What did you think or feel throughout the process?
In a traditional contextual inquiry interview, the moderator would rightly focus on the needs and pain points in the online shopping process. Things he might look out for - how much time it took for completion, was it a success or a failure, what were the ah ha! moments, what were the roadblocks.
A layer missing in the above approach is the latent need of shopping. What motivates a customer to shop? Why did he choose this site?
An empathy interview combined with a traditional Q&A will deliver stronger insights that are backed up with real motivations of the user.
So, reframing the above question
"Recall your last "shopping" experience. Who did you shop for? What were some delightful moments while you shopped?"
The above question may not directly be linked to online shopping, however it could give us an higher level of understanding about what matters to people when they shop.
As moderators, we could always layer the questions by digging deeper into the online shopping experience as a follow on question. However, with empathy interviews we get an opportunity to understand the higher level motives of our customers.
In a nutshell,
The idea is to get subjects to speak from the heart and talk about what’s really important to them, rather than what fits into the interviewer’s agenda. The process mimics a regular conversation, which helps ease tensions and encourages participants to relax and start telling stories.