Interviews

An interview is a real voice conversation. Buildpad talks with each person who opens your link, follows the goal and objectives you set, asks follow-up questions, and brings back a transcript and a set of answers for every person. You get the kind of insight only talking to customers gives, without finding a time to meet each of them.

How you get one

Interviews are set up from a work phase chat, once there is an idea to ask people about. There are three ways one ends up on your canvas.

• Buildpad proposes it. When a phase needs answers from real people, Buildpad suggests an interview as the next move and explains why. Once you agree, it writes the whole setup from what is already on the canvas, places the card, and shares the link with you in the chat.
• You ask for it. Say what you want to learn and from whom, like "set up an interview with people who bought a candle as a gift this year". Buildpad writes the setup and you adjust it by replying.
• The Interview button. The Interview button on the canvas rail creates an empty interview called New interview. It already has a working link but no objectives, so ask Buildpad to fill it in before you share it.

What an interview is made of

• Title: the first thing a respondent sees, on the start screen and on the card.
• Intro: a few sentences under the title that say what the conversation is about and roughly how long it takes.
• Screening: the conditions a person has to meet. Buildpad confirms them first, and when someone does not match it thanks them and ends the conversation.
• Objectives: the things you want to find out. They steer the conversation, and each person's answers are written up one objective at a time.
• Context: background only Buildpad sees. What the project is, what you already know, what you are unsure about. Respondents never see it.
• Language: the language the whole interview runs in, speech and transcription included. You can pick from English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
• Voice: Male or Female.
• Length: between 1 and 60 minutes, 5 by default. Buildpad paces itself to cover the objectives in that time.
• Email: whether Buildpad asks respondents for their email during the conversation. On by default.
• Color: the color of the card and of the page respondents see.
• Open or Closed: whether the link accepts new people.

Changing the setup

Select the card to see its toolbar. The quick picks live there:

• Language, from the language button.
• Voice, Male or Female.
• Ask for email or Don't ask for email.
• Color.
• Open or Closed, by clicking the status pill.

Everything else, the title, intro, screening, objectives, context and length, you change by asking in the chat: "make it three minutes" or "add an objective about where they buy candles". Buildpad updates the card. Changes apply right away, also when the interview already has responses.

Writing a setup that works

Buildpad writes the setup for you, but it helps to know what good looks like so you can push back.

• Objectives are things to learn, not questions to ask. "What made them stop buying a brand they liked" leaves Buildpad free to get there in its own way and to probe when an answer is thin. Three to five is plenty for a short interview.
• Screening is only for what disqualifies. Phrase each criterion as something a person can confirm in a word, like "bought a scented candle in the last six months". Anything you merely want to know belongs in the objectives.
• Context makes the follow-ups good. Tell Buildpad what you are launching, what you already believe and what you are unsure about, and it follows up where it matters instead of nodding along.
• Set the language people will actually speak and have the setup written in it. The title and intro are what respondents read, and the conversation cannot switch languages halfway.
• Keep it short. People take a five-minute conversation far more readily than a twenty-minute one. Pick the shortest length that still covers the objectives.

Credits

A full interview uses a small amount of credits. The conversation, the voice, the transcription and the review written afterwards all count, and all of it is billed to the project owner, no matter who set the interview up. If the owner runs out of credits the interview pauses until credits are added. Running interviews explains what that looks like, and Credits covers how credits work.