Interviewing Users

Deborah Bard (NERSC) and Johanna (Hannah) Cohoon (LBNL) speak on Sept 1, 2026 at the Consortium for the Advancement of Scientific Software (CASS; https://cass.community/) User/Developer Experience working group webinar. Slides from these presentations are available in the UX in Science Zenodo community (https://zenodo.org/communities/uxinsc.... Visit the working group website to find slides, learn about upcoming events and more: https://cass.community/working-groups... Deborah Bard presents: Listening for the Real Problems: What User Interviews Revealed About the American Science Cloud The American Science Cloud is part of the Genesis Mission platform, and will provide AI services to DOE scientists. It’s a fast-moving project being developed across multiple teams and institutions. To understand the experience of its earliest users, we conducted interviews focused on what was working well, where users were struggling, and what they needed next. The interviews revealed that the most significant pain points were not technical. Instead, users struggled with communication, unclear expectations, and difficulty understanding how to navigate a rapidly evolving project. In this talk, I will describe how user interviews helped us identify these issues, distinguish platform problems from organizational ones, and prioritize improvements that might otherwise have been overlooked. Hannah Cohoon presents: Tips for Conducting User Interviews An interview is not the same thing as a conversation and you need some training to gather reliable data. I will present key tips for conducting user interviews so that you avoid bias and capture the important details you need from users. We’ll use audience polls to practice what we learn and attendees will leave with resources to help them plan and conduct their future interviews. To receive access to the supplemental resources Hannah discusses, send her an email.