Fourth deck of slides from the Field Research and Interaction Design, a Master course at the Geneva University of Art and Design, in the Media Design program taught in 2009-2010

1. Course #4: interviews
nicolas nova | liftlab
Head, Geneva | January, 14th 2010

2. Warning!
The point here is NOT to ask people what they
want/like
Instead, it’s about understanding WHAT they DO,
HOW they do it and what are their MOTIVATIONS
Understanding and document the natural context of
the activity (what people do versus what people are
asked to do versus what people say they do)
Find “informed opinions” = understandings of the
activity from the personal viewpoint of the
informant
Inspired by ethnography

3. Questions
Define an interview guide
Who?
What?
How? With what?
Where?
When? What moments? Before? After? Frequency?
... very rarely “why?”
Open - Semi-structured - Structured
In-context / afterwards (w/o traces of the activity
explored such as photo+video)

4. Recommendations
• Don’t set hypothesis too early!
• It’s better to have open and neutral questions
• Avoid qualitative comments on answers
• Ask lots of questions in order to clarify what has been
said (e.g. examples or to whom/which object an
informant refers to). Repeat what the informant has
just said to help him/her elaborate and add details.
• Follow the informants’ leads/logic, do not avoid to
explore unexpected leads
• Use the same vocabulary as the informants!

5. Recommendations (2)
• Observe first, ask afterwards
• Look for (and write down) motivations for actions,
drivers, needs or problems, don’t look for solution as
this stage
• Do not interfere with the activity/discussion at stake
• Try to understand what is not said verbally
• Use neutral questions: “what are you doing when you
do this?”
• Try to consider things that go beyond your research
scope
• I personally take lots of notes, even (apparently)
obvious and unimportant things, Be sure to note the
term employed by informants

6. Recommendations (3)
• When opening the interview, it’s generally good to
use open questions that can lead to rich and broad
answers:
• “do you have a mobile phone?” becomes “can you
describe how you use your mobile phone?,
• “do you often go on the Web?” becomes “when do
you go on the Web?”
• Phrase questions by using the informant as the
actor of the action at stake (verb) and avoid
negative formulations:
• “What questions would you like to ask to a search
engine?” becomes “What are the informations
you ask yourself on a regular basis?”

7. Recommendations (4)
• Encourage intimacy and trust:
• “what do you think about the web as a way to co-
construct local information?”, “put yourself in
XXXX’s shoes”
• Avoid asking “why” (people don’t want to loose face
so there are rationalizing biases) or if you ask “why”
be careful with how to use this data
• Avoid questions that evaluate the informants skills
(or that made him/her defensive):
• “are you able to...?” becomes “have you
already...?”
• “do you know how to send MMS?” becomes “how
do you exchange pictures with your friends?”

8. Recommendations (5)
• Understand practices:
• Ask concrete questions: “Do you find mobile
applications that fulfill your needs” becomes “Can
you give me an example of a mobile applications
that works well for you?”
• Avoid closed/multiple-choice questions,
• Specify a context in your questions
• Understand the sequences of actions: before/after
(“what did you do before that?”, “and what do yo
do afterwards?”), patterns (reccurence, cycles,
exceptions, routines...). It’s common to ask
informant to tell what happens during one day
(“can you tell me what you on a typical day?”).
• Don’t interrupt/break the flow

9. Recommendations (6)
• Don’t propose or test solutions during the interview:
avoid questions such as “do you think you’d appreciate X
or Y interface or a mobile version?” or “what level of
interaction would you like on a website about XXX” or
“what sort of information would you put on this mobile
website?”
• Users are not designers
• Instead of asking people what they want on a travelling
website, ask her/him to tell how she/he planified the trip,
what tools (technological or not) have been used, when...

10. Project discussion

11. Menu for next courses
➡ Course’s blog: http://usages.wordpress.com/
➡ Next course will be about interviewing techniques

12. Assignement
➡ Each student will have to read a research paper and present it to
the class:
• 10 minutes, no slides
• Outline: summary + why is it relevant for design + personal opinion
• Jung, Y. and Antilla, A. (2007): How to look beyond what users say that they
want. CHI Extended Abstracts 2007: 1759-1764,http://portal.acm.org/
citation.cfm?id=1240896
➡ Project:
• Define an interview guide and sent it to tutor

13. Let’s discuss your question

14. thanks
nicolas@liftlab.com