Strategies for User Interview Preparation and Formulating Appropriate Inquiries
In the realm of qualitative research, designing an effective interview guide is crucial for gathering valuable insights from users. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to prepare for this essential task.
First and foremost, define your research goals clearly. Understand what user behaviours, motivations, or pain points you wish to explore. This focus will guide the questions you develop.
Next, create a semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions grouped by themes or topics. These questions should encourage participants to tell stories about their experiences rather than just providing yes/no answers. For instance, instead of asking "Do you use X?", ask "Can you walk me through how you last used X?" Follow-up prompts like "Why?" or "What happened next?" are essential for delving deeper based on their responses.
Design your questions to balance consistency and flexibility. You want to ask all participants similar core questions for comparability, but remain adaptable to probe unexpected insights or new directions in the conversation. The interview setting should also support candid storytelling to help participants feel comfortable sharing detailed responses.
Additional key steps include: - Organizing questions in a logical flow from broader topics to more specific ones, which helps build rapport and ease participants into the discussion. - Avoiding leading questions or those that suggest answers, maintaining neutrality to reduce bias. - Including prompts and probes prepared in advance to handle different potential answers while keeping the conversation natural. - Planning for transcription and analysis, which may influence how detailed and structured your guide needs to be.
Remember, according to psychology researchers Steinar Kvale and Svend Brinkmann, concrete "how" and "what" questions should be asked before abstract "why" questions. The research method should be chosen based on the desired outcomes, not the other way around.
When designing an interview guide, consider what questions are most suited for the beginning, middle, and end of interviews, but be prepared to change the order of questions to suit the flow of the conversation during the interview.
Involving stakeholders in the design project is crucial for gaining buy-in for the interview project. The interview guide serves as a script for the interview and ensures the delivery of promised insights.
For further guidance, refer to Ann Blandford, Dominic Furniss, and Stephann Makri's book "Qualitative HCI Research: Going Behind the Scenes" or Steinar Kvale and Svend Brinkmann's book "InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing". The Nielsen Norman Group's article also discusses the benefits of asking lots of open-ended questions in user research.
Lastly, remember the quote by Sylvia Earle that emphasizes the importance of asking questions in a user interview with ease for both the interviewer and the participant. Happy interviewing!
In the process of designing an interview guide for user research, it's essential to delve into disciplines like UX design and interaction design to ensure questions encourage user storytelling and promote candid responses. Moreover, education-and-self-development resources such as books on qualitative HCI research can offer insights on structuring interview questions for learning valuable user insights.
