I’ve interviewed dozens of amazing people in web, design, business, and typography over the years as part of my day job, and I’ve also been an interviewee (most recently for Brightpod).

In my time as interviewer I’ve had all kinds of reponses back to my questions, ranging from the creative and hilarious to the abrupt and mediocre. People are massively unpredictable when it comes to written interviews, regardless of how talented they are or what they’ve achieved.

So, how do you get the best out of interviewees?

01. Do the research

Check out the interviewee’s website and social media accounts to find out what they like to talk about and what they write passionately about. Anything they’ve been pushing recently, like a book or event, is usually a good topic as long as you can think of questions that aren’t too salesy or obviously promotional.

Dig a bit deeper and you can usually find out what they don’t like to talk about or are bored of as well. If it’s someone who gets interviewed a lot, think outside the box. Think about what their readers/followers would like to know. You could even try crowdsourcing questions if you have time and your interviewee is influential.

It’s essential to ask questions tailored to the participant to get the best interviews. If you’re creating a series of interviews, the temptation is to ask each person the same questions, but this ends up getting stale for your readers and means you aren’t getting the most interesting answers from that interviewee.

02. Avoid closed questions

Any question that can be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is a bad interview question because people will just answer with that and a handful of words. I try to avoid starting with the leading, ‘Do you think…?’ for a similar reason, although careful wording can open up the field again and introduce some interesting opinion.

03. Provide prompts, explanation or examples (in brackets)

I generally overuse brackets in my writing, but for interview questions they’re great to provide a bit of extra background or list suggestions. This means you can ask vaguer questions like ‘Tell us a bit about yourself (e.g. how you got into the industry, your core skills, your biggest career achievements)?’ while still retaining some control and direction over the answer. When you’re publishing the interview, drop the bit in brackets and you’re good to go.

04. Ask two questions in one for longer, more detailed answers

This is a variation of the above, and occasionally you’ll get people just answering one question instead of both, but it’s worth trying out – especially if you’re covering a more complex topic. Simply asking ‘Why?’ after your first question can invoke a better response.

Again, you can also use your wording and ordering to influence the answers if you want; you’ll get different responses as a result. One famous example I heard at a talk about creating good surveys was that of asking people, ‘How would you rate your happiness out of 10?’ They then recreated the survey by asking, ‘When was the last time you went on a date?’ followed by, ‘How would you rate your happiness out of 10?’ Not surprisingly, people rated themselves less happy the second time around. You don’t need to use this kind of manipulation at all, but if you do, I’d recommend using it to direct the tone of the piece rather than the answers themselves.

05. Don’t be afraid of controversy

Asking people what they do and what they’ve achieved recently are good introductory questions, but as the interview progresses you’ll want something to spark more interest. Having said that, your questions should always be both considered and appropriate. Any hotly debated topics will always result in more views and shares; you just need to know what works for your interviewee’s industry. For the tech industry, getting paid and women’s careers are always sure bets.

06. Introduce advice elements

If you’re interviewing someone, it’s pretty likely they’re an authority on something. Ask them to share their top tips and advice on their favourite topics. This has the added bonus of giving your readers valuable takeaways.

07. Don’t overthink it

A lot of interviewers have trouble coming up with something because they’re looking for something profound or revolutionary…particularly if the person they’re interviewing is super important or famous. No matter the topic and subject, your questions don’t have to be groundbreaking; that’s what the answers are there for. You job is to provide the starting points of conversation. Common questions are common for a reason – because they work – so don’t worry about including a few that you know are used a lot. It’s more important to have clear, concise phrasing.

08. Match high-quality imagery to answers

Interviews can suffer from dense blocks of text, so break it up with relevant images. A good photo of your interviewee is ideal, and it’s always a good idea to ask if they can provide relevant additional photos. Desk space or home photos can provide interesting personal insight too. If you can’t get anything at all, try and be creative with your screenshots, using well-designed subpages and interesting social media profiles as well as the standard homepage shot.

09. Ask more questions than you’ll use

People will always find some questions easier to answer than others, and it may not be the ones you think! Ask more than you need and you have the option to leave some out or combine a couple of shorter answers into one longer one if needed.

10. Review your full list of questions

Once you have your set, read them through to make sure you’re not repeating any elements of questions or asking things that are likely to trigger the same response each time. Reviewing is vital for catching any typos, rephrasing anything that could be misinterpreted or unclear, and general sense-checking.

Bonus essentials

When you email someone with interview questions, tell them two things: 1) what kind of tone you’re looking for (serious, lighthearted, etc.) and 2) a rough word count. Saying that you want a minimum of 600 words will get you much more detailed answers and a better piece of content overall.

Have you ever interviewed anyone or been interviewed? What did you learn from it?