Effective Website Interviews: Gathering User Insights for Better Design

1. Interviews

2. Interviews • Having worked out who will be using your web site (personas, questionnaires etc), you may want to interview selected representatives • In traditional requirements gathering, interviews are used heavily • Questions can be open-ended:"What do you think the web site needs?"...or closed:"Does the site need a schedule of events?"

3. Structure • Interviews can be: • Structured: fixed list of closed questions. Useful to get feedback about a specific design feature • Unstructured: General goals for the interview, open-ended, flexible, sets of topics and prompts, more exploratory, less specific. Useful when exploring new ideas, eg: first impressions of a new system or ideas for a redesign

4. Structure • Semi-structured: somewhere in between structured and non-structured. There are questions to be asked and topics to be discussed, but the interviewer is free to explore interesting avenues as they open up. • Most interviews are semi-structured • The data from structured interviews (surveys) is very amenable to data processing

5. Advantages of Interviewing • If the team has very little information and needs a foundation before continuing requirements gathering. • Can be used to clarify answers from surveys which were interesting but unclear • The next question can be based on the last response • Interviewer can explore different directions

6. Advantages of Interviewing • Interviewer can "drill down" to explore an interesting topic opened up by the interviewee • Your assumptions about users may be wrong. It is important to find out as early as possible. • You may be targeting the wrong market

7. Disadvantages of Interviewing • Time consuming for interviewer and interviewee • The quality of the information depends on the interviewer's skill and experience. • In some cases, the interviewee may not feel comfortable revealing information face-to-face but prefers anonymity in, eg, a survey. • The interviewee is more likely to give the approved answer than the truthful one f2f.

8. Planning • Check whether tape recording the interview is permissible (if not then take detailed notes – use a scribe). • If taping the interview, check that the machine works and that the batteries will last. • Outline of the topics to be covered • Interviewer must know what information is required

9. Planning • A list of questions to ask • Tell interviewee topic of meeting and how long it will take • After the interview, interviewee should be thanked for her time. (I sometimes give flowers or chocolates)

10. Now you!! • You have been given the task of interviewing five people about their habits when browsing the internet for fun. • The interview will be semi-structured, so you will want to go armed with a skeleton set of questions • Write down the questions. • (plenary)

11. During the interview • Use an agenda – know what information you want and have some questions prepared • Introduce yourself and explain the purpose of the interview • Reassure the interviewee about ethical issues (eg anonymity of answers) • Get consent to use the information (preferably on tape)

12. During the interview • Ask the interviewee if they mind being recorded • Be prepared to follow your curiosity if interesting areas are revealed • Be prepared to steer the interviewee back onto the topic if they digress • Put the interviewee at ease • Keep questions simple and avoid jargon

13. During the interview • Allow time for thinking about a question • Start with easy questions and later progress to deeper ones • Avoid leading questions, eg: "Why is the current system so difficult to use?" • Indicate when the interview is at an end & thank the interviewee • Analyse data as soon as possible after interview while you still remember the context

14. Typical Questions • Tell me about your typical day • Tell me three good things about ----- • Tell me three bad things about ---- • What if you had three wishes to make the web site better? • Did you have any difficulties in finding what you wanted, and how did you cope? • What else should we have asked you about?

15. Whom do you interview? • Interview at least one representative of each stakeholder group and one representative of each persona • Preferably interview two or three representatives of each group • Ideally, stop when no new insights are appearing (but resource limitations may stop you before that).

16. When do you interview? • Whenever you want in-depth feedback, eg: • When trying to find out the needs of a user group • When debriefing after a user test of a prototype or newly released site

17. Interviewing on User Needs • Ask what people want from the web site • Why would you go to the site? • How does it fit your lifestyle? • When would you use it? • How would you use it? • What features would you like? • How would you use the features?

18. Interviewing about prototypes • Ask people to look at the designs and say what they think • Compare with alternatives (competitors'?) • Comment on layout, colour, ease of use and appeal • Ask them to describe the feel of the site. Was that the feel you were trying to design for?

19. Interviewing about prototypes • Try interviewing while user is doing a walkthrough of the site • This doesn't work if they are doing a task, because they become absorbed by the task • Expect comments on: privacy, text or layouts they don't like, inefficient tasks, their own design tastes.

20. Interviewing after a user test • What is the best thing about the web site • What is the worst thing about the web site • What needs changing most ? • How easy were the tasks? • How realistic were the tasks • Were you distracted by having to give a commentary?

21. Phone interviews • If the respondent is asked a list of standardised questions, it is called a "phone survey". • Used if it is impractical to talk face-to-face • Used if you have specific interviewees in mind • Ringing people up at home is unpopular. Therefore this only works with people who are keen to cooperate.

22. A thought • The best interviews are those in which the interviewer is silent for most of the time.

23. Video • (show the stroke victim mobile texting video) • (the interviewer is very skilful. Watch how she runs the interview and learn) • (plenary on what learned about interviewing)

24. Suggest an exam question • This module has no exam. • If this module did have an exam, suggest an exam question on this week's lecture • (collect in plenary, work through each with class)

25. Sources • Benyon, D., Turner, P., and Turner, S. (2005) Designing Interactive Systems, Addison Wesley, Harlow, UK. • Brinck, T., Gergle, D., and Wood, S. T. (2002) Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work, Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, USA • Lazar, J., (2001) User Centred Web Development, Jones and Bartlett, Sudbury, USA