Usage interviews vs. usability testing
These two terms sound similar but serve different purposes.
Usability testing is about observing how people interact with your product. You watch them try to complete tasks. You're looking for friction, confusion, things that don't work as expected. The focus is on the interface.
Usage interviews are about understanding why people use your product, and what role it plays in their lives or work. You're not watching them click around. You're having a conversation about their experience over time. The focus is on motivation and value.
Both are valuable. But they answer different questions.
When usage interviews make sense
Usage interviews are most useful when you have a product in the hands of real users and want to understand their relationship with it.
Common situations:
- You want to understand why people signed up and whether they're getting what they expected
- You're seeing drop-off and want to know why people leave
- You want to find your most valuable users and understand what makes them different
- You're planning what to build next and want to ground that in real usage
Timing matters. Interview too early and they haven't formed habits yet. Too late and they've forgotten why they started. A few weeks of active use is often the sweet spot for engaged users. For churned users, reach out soon after they stop, before they forget the details.
What you're trying to learn
Usage interviews help you understand:
- What made someone try the product in the first place
- What they're using it for, which may differ from what you designed it for
- What they find valuable, and what they ignore
- What would make them stop using it, or switch to something else
The answers often surprise. People use products in ways you didn't anticipate. They value things you considered minor. They ignore features you thought were central.
Common mistakes
Asking about features instead of outcomes. "Do you use the export feature?" is less useful than "What happens after you're done here? Where does this work go next?" Features are just means to an end.
Only talking to happy users. It's tempting to interview your biggest fans. But people who churned or who use the product minimally often have more instructive feedback. Reach them with a short, honest email. Most won't respond, but the few who do are often willing to share candid perspectives.
Fishing for compliments. If you're asking questions that invite praise, you'll get it, and learn nothing. Focus on understanding their actual behavior and experience.
A practical example
Say you run a project management tool. Usage analytics show that some teams log in daily, while others drop off after a week. The numbers don't tell you why.
You talk to users in both groups. The daily users describe how the tool became part of their morning standup ritual. The churned users say it felt like "just another place to update". They already had a spreadsheet that worked well enough.
That's the insight. The tool works when it becomes a ritual, not when it's a task. That changes how you think about onboarding, about features, about everything.
From patterns to priorities
After usage interviews, you should have:
- Value drivers: what makes people stick
- Churn signals: what makes people leave
- Feature insights: what's used, what's ignored, what's missing
This feeds directly into product decisions. Retention, onboarding, roadmap: all of it benefits from understanding how people actually use what you've built.
When sharing with stakeholders, contrast expectations with reality. What did you assume people valued? What do they actually value? That gap is often the most actionable insight.