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Interviews

Interviews. Stephanie Smale. Overview. Introduction Interviews and their pros and cons Preparing for an interview Interview Elements: Questions types and pitfalls 3 types of Interviews Structure Rapport Pitfalls & Response Bias Contextual interviews Example. Interviews.

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Interviews

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  1. Interviews Stephanie Smale

  2. Overview • Introduction • Interviews and their pros and cons • Preparing for an interview • Interview Elements: • Questions types and pitfalls • 3 types of Interviews • Structure • Rapport • Pitfalls & Response Bias • Contextual interviews • Example

  3. Interviews • A directed conversation between people • Conducted one-on-one • Good way to measure the subjective qualities of a system • Well suited to exploratory studies • Important for influence on design and development

  4. Pros and Cons • Interviewer may require expert domain knowledge • More costly than questionnaires • Response rate is higher • Allows rephrasing of misunderstood questions • Challenging with sensitive issues • Subject to response bias • Subjectivity

  5. Interview Preparation • Establish interview objectives • Become familiar with end users • Choose interviewees with care • Make plans in advance • Decide on question types and interview structure • Prepare questions and interview script • Test any recording equipment, prepare any consent forms

  6. Interview Elements: Questions • Open or Closed • Probes • General or Specific • Factual or Hypothetical • Judgmental • Comparative • Neutral • Requests (Hackos and Redish, 1998)

  7. Question Pitfalls • Leading questions • Double-barrelled questions • Blaming questions • Jargon and specialized language • Bias and ambiguity

  8. Leading Question (Courtesy of Edward Tse, 2003)

  9. Interview Elements: Types • Three main types of interviews: • Structured • Unstructured • Semi-structured

  10. Structured Interviews • Goal oriented – a preset agenda • Very well planned and controlled • Questions are predetermined • Tend to be standardized • No exploration of individual attitudes • Useful when study’s goals are clearly understood

  11. Structured Interviews • Advantages: • Efficient • Easier to evaluate • Can compare results and analyze using stats • Interviewer training is less • Disadvantages: • Can get boring • May miss details • Difficult to build rapport

  12. Unstructured Interviews • Conversation that focuses on one topic • Can be very in depth • Still planned, but flexible • Contains mostly open-ended questions • Acquisition of unanticipated information • Can generate rich data • Used for early requirements gathering

  13. Unstructured Interviews • Advantages: • Provides more detailed answers • Allows for spontaneity • A skilled interviewer can build rapport more easily • Allows interviewer to adopt vocabulary of user • Disadvantages: • More time consuming • Possibility of losing control of interview • Generates a LOT of information • More difficult to analyze • Impossible to replicate • Requires a skilled interviewer

  14. Semi-Structured Interviews • A focused interview with flexibility • Combines features of structured and unstructured interview types • Basic script used to guide interviews and maintain consistency • Starts with predetermined questions and then probes for details • Used when system requirements are understood, but opinions are not

  15. The Interview Structure • An interview process can be divided into six phases: • Introduction • Warm Up • General Issues • Deep Focus • Retrospective • Wrap Up (Kuniavsky, 2003 b; Preece, 2002)

  16. Rapport • Importance • Especially with unstructured formats • Encourages honesty and openness • Does not mean you are sacrificing neutrality • Respect, professionalism • Treating the user as a partner • Listening more than talking (Hackos and Redish, 1998; Kuniavsky, 2003 b)

  17. Interview Pitfalls • Extending the interview beyond time • Missing key points • Explaining a system’s behaviour • Asking for predictions on actions • Watch for: • Perceived threat to interviewee’s self or job image • Emotional reactions • Lying or embellishments

  18. Response Bias • Giving replies they think are desired • Socially acceptable answers • User’s vs. the system’s fault • Opinions of no importance

  19. Contextual Interview • Part of the Contextual Inquiry technique • Helps to understand real environment • Uncovers • what people really do • how they define what is actually valuable • Based in anthropology and ethnography • Basic method involves visiting & observing • Best done at the beginning of the development cycle. (Kuniavsky, 2003 b)

  20. Contextual Interview (http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/uicourse/EHCIcontexualinquiry.mpg)

  21. Exercise • The Bad Interview • From Newman and Lamming (1995) • Find the poor techniques used • Change the element from bad to good • Reconstruct the example to have an effective interview strategy

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