Transcript interviews

Interviews
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?"
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
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
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
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
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-toface but prefers anonymity in, eg, a survey.
• The interviewee is more likely to give the
approved answer than the truthful one f2f.
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
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)
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)
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)
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
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
Typical Questions
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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?
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).
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
Interviewing on User Needs
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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?
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?
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.
Interviewing after a user test
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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?
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.
A thought
• The best interviews are those in which the
interviewer is silent for most of the time.
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)
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)
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