Stakeholder interviews in Lookback are not the same as regular user Interviews.
They are designed for a different purpose, a different audience, and a different kind of outcome: alignment, shared context, and early sense-making - not usability testing.
This article explains what Stakeholder Interviews are, how they work, and when to use them.
What a Stakeholder Interview is (and isn’t)
A Stakeholder Interview is a recorded conversation with internal stakeholders - such as:
product managers
designers
engineers
executives
sales or support leads
The goal is to:
surface assumptions
understand priorities and constraints
capture institutional knowledge
align early on what matters
It is not:
a usability test
a task-based study
a replacement for user research
Stakeholder Interviews complement user research by capturing context and intent that helps interpret user evidence later.
How Stakeholder Interviews differ from regular Interviews
This distinction is critical.
Regular Interviews
live inside a Round
are one-participant sessions
are part of a research method (Interview, LiveShare)
are optimized for observing participant behavior
Stakeholder Interviews
live at the Project level
are not part of any Round
allow multiple participants
behave more like a structured meeting
are optimized for conversation and alignment
This is why Stakeholder Interviews appear in their own section in the Project sidebar - separate from Rounds.
Why Stakeholder Interviews live at the Project level
Stakeholder Interviews are about the why of the project, not a specific test.
Placing them at the Project level allows you to:
keep stakeholder context visible throughout the research
connect conversations directly to Stakeholder Goals
reuse insights across multiple rounds of user research
treat stakeholder input as evidence, not memory
They become part of the project’s long-term reasoning trail.
Multiple participants, shared conversation
Unlike regular Interviews, Stakeholder Interviews support:
multiple participants in the same conversation
group discussions
collaborative reflection
This makes them well suited for:
kickoff conversations
alignment workshops
debriefs after research rounds
sense-making discussions with leadership
The structure supports discussion - not observation.
How AI supports Stakeholder Interviews
During Stakeholder Interviews, Eureka:
captures the conversation
generates transcripts
produces Headlines for scannable review
Just like with user sessions:
AI assists with navigation and recall
humans remain responsible for interpretation and conclusions
Stakeholder Interviews benefit especially from Headlines, since conversations can be long and wide-ranging.
From Stakeholder Interviews to Stakeholder Goals
Stakeholder Interviews often inform, refine, or prompt the creation of Stakeholder Goals.
A common flow is:
Run stakeholder interviews early
Identify recurring priorities, risks, and unknowns
Translate these into clear Stakeholder Goals
Use those goals to guide user research and AI-assisted surfacing
This keeps stakeholder intent explicit and traceable - not implicit or forgotten.
How Eureka helps propose Stakeholder Goals
During Stakeholder Interviews, Eureka can help identify recurring themes, priorities, and concerns expressed by stakeholders.
Based on these conversations, Eureka may:
suggest candidate Stakeholder Goals
highlight moments where stakeholders express clear interests or risks
help researchers turn implicit priorities into explicit goals
These proposed goals:
are suggestions, not decisions
must be reviewed, edited, or discarded by the researcher
become active only once the researcher confirms them
This allows teams to:
avoid losing important context from early conversations
reduce reliance on memory or handwritten notes
translate stakeholder intent into clear, reviewable goals
Stakeholder Goals remain human-owned.
Eureka helps surface what might matter - researchers decide what does.
When to use Stakeholder Interviews
Use Stakeholder Interviews when you want to:
align early before research starts
understand internal perspectives and constraints
capture assumptions worth testing with users
revisit context mid-project
anchor decisions in shared understanding
They are especially powerful before the first user session and after key research phases.
What Stakeholder Interviews are not optimized for
Stakeholder Interviews are not designed for:
observing task performance
capturing screen interactions
structured usability testing
quantitative comparison
For those goals, use moderated or unmoderated user research inside Rounds.
Why this matters
By treating Stakeholder Interviews as a first-class research activity, Lookback helps teams:
reduce misalignment early
preserve institutional knowledge
connect intent to evidence
make AI more useful by grounding it in context
Stakeholder Interviews are not a shortcut - they are part of rigorous qualitative practice.