Stakeholders and users bring very different—but equally important—perspectives to a project. Stakeholders define goals, constraints, and success metrics from the business side. Users, on the other hand, reveal real-world behaviors, pain points, and needs.
It’s important to clearly distinguish between stakeholders and users—and to approach their interviews differently.
Stakeholders are the people responsible for the project’s success from an internal or business perspective. They help define goals, priorities, and constraints based on organizational needs.
Stakeholder interviews often help:
Users are the people who will actually interact with the product, service, or system. Their perspective is grounded in real experiences, tasks, and needs.
User interviews often uncover:
Both stakeholder and user perspectives are essential—but they serve different purposes.
While their goals may appear aligned at a high level, the underlying needs and expectations can be very different. If stakeholder input dominates without balancing real user insight, the final product may miss the mark.
By interviewing both groups, you’ll better balance institutional goals with actual user behavior—and design a product that works for everyone.
Example: Academic Department Website
If the site focuses only on stakeholder goals, it may highlight news and updates, but leave students struggling to find key academic information.
If it focuses only on user needs, it may overlook the department’s desire to showcase its achievements and build community.
A successful design meets both needs—prioritizing critical student tasks while supporting broader department goals.
Research methods that involve direct interaction with users to gather firsthand insights.