Blueberri Consulting

Living Questions In Stakeholder Research

Role: UX Designer

Team: Christine Lee, Jerry M., Akari S. Julia D.

Scope:

  • Stakeholder Interview

  • Project Kickoff

Blueberri Consulting is a food & content consulting firm that aims to take food content creators to the next level.

As part of a client website redesign, our team Jerry, Akari, and I conducted a stakeholder interview with support from our project manager, Julia. The goal was to better understand our client’s perspective on the current digital product experience, identify pain points, and pinpoint opportunities for the bluberri.co website redesign

Context

Prior to the interview, our team collaboratively developed a structured interview guide with 11 key questions.

Jerry was tasked to lead the first portion of the conversation (6 questions), and I led the second half (5 questions). Julia, our project manager, had previously been in contact with the client to set up the project. As a team, we agreed it was best if she also joined the session to observe and offer insight if any of topics discussed were previously covered.

Adapting in the Moment

We prepared an 11-question interview guide ahead of time. But once we were in the room, it became clear the script alone wasn’t enough. Below is a snapshot of how we adapted the questions to better connect with the stakeholder, turning a static script into a dynamic conversation.

Pre-written Questions

Opening Question #1 (Jerry)

If your company was a person, and your customers and clients were meeting them for the first time, what kind of person would they be? Another way to ask this is…When someone lands on your website and is looking into your company, what message do you want to convey?

Question #2 (Jerry)

Since you provided some examples of other companies’ websites, what aspects, features or services do they provide that you have gravitated towards? Is there anything else about these companies that has attracted you to them?

Question #3 (Jerry)

Who are we doing this update for?

Question #4 (Jerry)

What about your current ‘About’ page do you feel needs to be changed or expanded upon?

Question #5 (Jerry)

Can you elaborate more about your vision or idea for a dynamic landing page? Is there any other design or digital presence that you feel needs to improve that we might not have spoken about?

Question #6 (Jerry)

How do you want to measure success of this redesign?

Question #7 (Christine)

Which of these features would align most with your business goals?

  1. Podcast: 

  2. Newsletter  (substack):

  3. Book

  4. Consulting 1 on 1’s -solutions

  5. Courses

Question #8 (Christine)

Tell us about your podcast. What is an example show format, who are the guests, how many episodes do you have? What is the purpose of the podcast page, to secure sponsors, more downloads?

Question #9 (Christine)

What are the consultation options? How do clients use this service currently?

Question #10 (Christine)

Reminder: Please send us any logo, branding, or photo assets!

Bonus Question #11 (Christine)

So I think one of the last things that we wanted to touch in about was the social media plans, because we are going to create the templates for you. And now you mentioned the AI photos. So we'll take those into consideration when we do craft those templates. Templates, you know, we were just looking, we're looking for more information about like, how many you will be looking for?

Asked Questions

Opening Question #1 (Jerry)

If your company was a person, and your customers and clients were meeting them for the first time, what kind of person would they be? Another way to ask this is…When someone lands on your website and is looking into your company, what message do you want to convey?

Question #2 (Jerry)

Since you provided some examples of other companies’ websites, what aspects, features or services do they provide that you have gravitated towards? Is there anything else about these companies that has attracted you to them?

Question #3 (Jerry)

Who are we doing this update for?

Question #3a (Christine)

I actually have a follow-up question to this one. So you mentioned the larger corporations that reach out to you. You, who, like what role is actually contacting you?

Question #3b (Christine)

And so the founders/c-level are reaching out to you. For the food bloggers, a follow-up question would be when they reach out to you for your services, have they already gotten a decent-sized following or do they start out like, I'm brand new, I want to start something, Can you give us some insight into that?

Question #3c (Christine)

Do you find there's like more success with more established or versus like brand new but willing to jump in and explore?

Question #4 (Jerry)

What about your current ‘About’ page do you feel needs to be changed or expanded upon?

Question #5 (Jerry)

Can you elaborate more about your vision or idea for a dynamic landing page? Is there any other design or digital presence that you feel needs to improve that we might not have spoken about?

Question #6 (Jerry)

How do you want to measure success of this redesign?

Question #7 (Christine)

So we just talked about, you know, all the different verticals that you have. And the next question is on those exactly. So I wanted to know more, these are all of your business goals to have the podcast, newsletter, the blog, the book, consulting one-on-ones, and then courses too.

Do you think that you could kind of rank currently at the moment, what is bringing you the most revenue or what's the most successful at the moment?

Question #8a (Christine)

Oh, definitely. Yeah, I was wondering if you could just tell us more about the podcast too. You said it's mostly yourself. Can you give me an example show format, or are you going to have guests?

Question #8b (Christine)

How often will you have a new podcast episode come out?

Question #8c (Christine)

Since we're going to build out this podcast page, what would be your main goals for it? Would it be to get more clients, give them insight into your services and the experience of working with you, or would it be to secure sponsorship from companies or ads?

Question #9 (Christine)

What are the consultation options? How do clients use this service currently?

Question #10 (Christine)

So if we have 10 minutes, I mean, I think the only things that we were going to ask about was for the new logo, you're going to send us any logo branding and if you have any photo assets

Question #11 (Jerry)

So we talked about your interaction with clients and businesses and there's obviously the website and SEO and things like that. Is there any other way that you have have interacted or connected with a client? Is there any sort of avenue that we might not know about or be thinking about?

Question #11 (Akari)

What made you choose Blueberri?

Question #13 (Christine)

So I think one of the last things that we wanted to touch in about was the social media plans, because we are going to create the templates for you. And now you mentioned the AI photos. So we'll take those into consideration when we do craft those templates. We were just looking for more information, about how many you will be looking for?

Interviewing Key moments

Jerry started the conversation by reading directly from our shared document. Two of the first few questions, in particular, landed flat.

It became clear that while our questions looked good on paper, they weren’t translating well in practice—at least not at first.

This question ended up being too broad.

Sandie’s response indicated that the question was too ambiguous, as she asked a question back. It’s possible that this question caught her off guard

It may also reflect a misalignment between what was meant by “who” (perhaps expecting user personas, stakeholder groups, etc.) and what Sandie thinks we’re asking.

I took this moment to ask a few clarifying questions with more specificity to understand not only where the clients come from but also more about the size/scale of their business, and how much agency her clients have in making key decisions such as hiring her for services.

The Fix:

Sandie let us know that her main clients are food companies as well as food content creators. In order to get a better idea of the people behind these requests I asked 3 follow up questions looking into the roles that contact her and the stages of the business when her clients do reach out to her.

These follow up questions revealed key information such as :

  • The leads are c-level executives/founders , food content creators with a solid following. as well as a few new food content creators

  • All of her clients are forward thinking and ambitious. They are open to taking a risk for growth.

Question #3 (Jerry)

Who are we doing this update for?

Response #3 (Sandie)

Besides me or my audience?

Question #5 (Jerry)

Is there any other design or digital presence you feel that needs to improve that we might not have spoken about?

Response #5 (Sandie)

Um, well, I uh, ah, I don't think so.

This question ended up being too broad.

The double barreled phrasing also could have confused the client, causing her to have to think about two different subjects. These subjects are also broad and can encompass many different aspects from web design, social media, branding, etc.

The phrase “needs to improve” is also difficult to answer, since the client has already come to us with a list of requests. Improvement can also encompass a large range from design to profitability.

The Fix:

Since this was the second instance where our client was caught off guard, I had to adapt all future questions for clarity and ease. The goal was to avoid any additional moments for confusion. This is why I decided to implement a conversational tone as well as asking very specific questions to build back the rapport.

Question #3a (Christine)

I actually have a follow-up question to this one. So you mentioned the larger corporations that reach out to you. You, who, like what role is actually contacting you?

Question #3b (Christine)

And so the founders/c-level are reaching out to you. For the food bloggers, a follow-up question would be when they reach out to you for your services, have they already gotten a decent-sized following or do they start out like, I'm brand new, I want to start something, Can you give us some insight into that?

Question #3c (Christine)

Do you find there's like more success with more established or versus like brand new but willing to jump in and explore?

Making the pivot

As Jerry passed the questioning to me, rather than sticking to the script, I used the prepared questions as a flexible foundation.

Question #7 (Christine)

Which of these features would align most with your business goals?

  1. Podcast: 

  2. Newsletter  (substack):

  3. Book

  4. Consulting 1 on 1’s -solutions

  5. Courses

Question #7 (Christine)

So we just talked about, you know, all the different verticals that you have. And the next question is on those exactly. So I wanted to know more, these are all of your business goals to have the podcast, newsletter, the blog, the book, consulting one-on-ones, and then courses too.

Do you think that you could kind of rank currently at the moment, what is bringing you the most revenue or what's the most successful at the moment?

The Fix: Word Choice & Reflective Listening

I used a less structured approach to increase exploration into the topic, rather than confining the answers. The written question would be more appropriate for a survey, but not an interview. I also wanted to clarify the words “business goals” since these would all be functions of her business. Instead I used the word revenue and success to guide the client.

Another tactic I used to build trust was to use reflective listening or paraphrasing to build rapport, clarify my understanding, reveal deeper insights, direct the conversation and reduce misinterpretation. I used the client’s earlier answers as jumping-off points, weaving their language into the next prompts.

Question #8 (Christine)

Tell us about your podcast. What is an example show format, who are the guests, how many episodes do you have? What is the purpose of the podcast page, to secure sponsors, more downloads?

Question #8a(Christine)

Oh, definitely. Yeah, I was wondering if you could just tell us more about the podcast too. You said it's mostly yourself. Can you give me an example show format, or are you going to have guests?

Question #8b (Christine)

How often will you have a new podcast episode come out?

Question #8c (Christine)

Since we're going to build out this podcast page, what would be your main goals for it? Would it be to get more clients, give them insight into your services and the experience of working with you, or would it be to secure sponsorship from companies or ads?

The Fix: Conversational tone & Question Scaffolding

I rephrased questions to sound more natural and conversational. I also adjusted my tone to match the client’s to be a bit more informal, curious, and open-ended. This tone was meant to reflect my interest and support for the project and inspire more of a dialogue with the client. I also used the method of question scaffolding or chunking. to break down a multifaceted question into smaller, sequential prompts that are easier for the participant to understand and respond to. This reduces cognitive load, encourages more detailed answers, decreases confusion and increases conversational flow.

Analysis

We used AI assistant note takers in our meeting for video recording. We later reviewed the AI-generated meeting summary, which analyzed transcription and visual cues (facial expressions, vocal tone, pauses). The data confirmed what we had sensed in real time:

Read.ai analyzes the visual and audio cues of all meeting participants to create three scores: read, engagement, and sentiment scores.

We can see an uphill trend after I took a more conversational and engaging approach relying on key strategies, the overall enagagement and sentiment began to trend upwards!

Key Takeaways

While preparation gave us structure, it was adaptability that brought value to the table. My ability to read the room and pivot mid-conversation transformed a flat interview into a meaningful exchange. It also reinforced many philosophies I hold close to my research practice:

I believe in asking living questions, not dead ones.
Living questions breathe. They adapt. They’re attuned to the people in the room.
Dead questions, no matter how well-written, can shut down dialogue when delivered without context or care.

Additional lessons learned include:

  • Adaptability is a research skill: It’s not just about having the right questions. It's about knowing when to bend, flex, and follow the spark of curiosity.

  • Reading the room is critical: With the help of AI tools and live observation, we were able to validate our instincts with data, which will help us improve team dynamics for future sessions.

  • Structure should support, not restrict: Our preparation wasn’t wasted, but gave us confidence and alignment. But true insight came when we let the conversation live.

  • Facilitating is a form of design: Each interaction is a micro-experience. Designers need to know that how we ask, how we listen, and how we respond is just as important as the words we choose.

This interview taught me that facilitation is less about performance and more about presence. It’s about showing up for the person in front of you and asking the question that wants to be asked.