{"id":344,"date":"2016-10-13T15:52:13","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T14:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/?p=344"},"modified":"2017-10-04T18:19:11","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T17:19:11","slug":"how-to-plan-for-your-user-interviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/2016\/10\/13\/how-to-plan-for-your-user-interviews\/","title":{"rendered":"How to plan for your user interviews?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So you have set yourself some goals for your\u00a0project\u00a0(e.g. reduced air pollution on Gosforth highstreet, more people take up volunteering in Walker, etc) and developed some questions you like your project to answer to (e.g. Can air quality data, displayed at street level, encourage behaviour change in pedestrians are car drivers?)… and you have begun to map out stakeholders, and key activities those are involved in as relevant to your challenge… So what’s next?<\/p>\n

For our projects, we do assume that nobody knows everything, knowledge is distributed. Somebody knows more about the local area, somebody may know aspects of technological interventions that might work, etc, etc. As suggested in the lecture, we approach our designs with the idea that the participants listed in our briefs are\u00a0experts\u00a0<\/em>in their own lifes, and that their views in relation to our projects are interesting and important (see Halskov et al., 2015).<\/p>\n

So one way to approach this is to say, given our goal, how might our user informants (listed on our brief) help us collect the insight required to develop better idea of the priorities, needs, expectations that they may place towards our projects. At this point, we are not yet so focused on specific solutions or approaches, we still keep an open mind and let the users we involve speak.<\/p>\n

Preparing\u00a0your interviews<\/h4>\n

So with your goals in mind\u00a0(e.g. reduced air pollution on Gosforth highstreet, more people take up volunteering in Walker, etc), prepare your interviews around the following points.<\/p>\n

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  1. What might the person tell you about?:\u00a0<\/strong>Who is the person you are speaking to and which organisation they belong to? Note down a few points: e.g. community organiser in Walker, likely interests in x, y, z.<\/li>\n
  2. Do you prepare to bring some prompt materials?\u00a0<\/strong>For example, you could bring a map of the area; flip chart paper\u00a0and post-its are good to capture notes during the meeting.<\/li>\n
  3. Decide who is going to ask questions?:\u00a0<\/strong>If\u00a0you\u00a0meet, consider who is going to lead and ask the questions? Decide on who is going to take notes.<\/li>\n
  4. What do you plan to cover and perhaps in which order?<\/strong>\n