Discovery Round 2 — Insight Research, Develop Interview Script & Conduct Interview

[jeremybrady]

Background

Once we have completed the recruitment and planning milestone, we should have interviews scheduled and ready to roll in conducting them.

Interview Script

Contact Tracing
Discovery Contextual Inquiry

Interview checklist
Stakeholder and user interviews often progress through key moments: introductions lead to warm-up questions, which lead to topic-specific questions, activities, etc. This checklist outlines those key moments, and suggests things to do as you go through them. Revelry Staff, please see this Google Doc Template

Pre-interview preparation

• Set aside 10 minutes before the interview begins to help your team intentionally transition to an inquiring mindset, to clarify with your colleagues their respective roles, to check any technologies on which the interview will rely, etc.

Make sure to

• Remind your team of the purpose of the interview
• Establish clear roles for anyone who will join (for example, moderators, observers, notetakers, etc.).
• Confirm with teammates, especially remote ones, how they might ask questions during the interview (for example, in a Slack thread)
• Do a tech check: confirm that screen sharing, recording, etc. works
• To be used at facilitators discretion—receipt of a signed participant agreement (example)
• Double-check any links, files, etc. that participants will need to evaluate (i.e., ensure that your concept, wireframes, or prototypes are available for testing)

Introductions
Spend 5 minutes at the beginning of the interview to clarify with the participant the parameters of the interview, and to give them a chance to ask any logistics-related questions.

Make sure to

• Thank the participant for their time
• Introduce yourself, and anyone who is joining you
• Explain the purpose of your research
• Provide an overview of the shape of the interview, including any required logistics (for example, screen sharing)
• Confirm the expected length of the interview
• Confirm receipt, if needed, of a signed participant agreement
• Explain
  • How you’ll take notes (for example “TapeACall”, Zoom video recording etc.).
  • How you’ll use any notes you take (for example, unattributed quotes)
• Ask the participant if they have questions at this time
• If the participant consents, turn on the recorder

Warm-up / icebreaker
Spend 5-10 minutes establishing the cadence for the interview as a conversation rather than a stilted back and forth. Help the participant feel comfortable, and focus on gaining important context for the body of the interview.

Make sure to

• Be polite; you’re a guest in the participant’s world
• Give the participant your full attention (You can signal this by making eye contact, asking follow up questions, etc. Be aware that taking notes, especially on a laptop, can distract from the conversation itself)
• Ask open-ended questions that will give you relevant information and help you form a better understanding of who this person is
• Understand the degree to which this person is comfortable talking about themselves and their work, and at what speed. Be mindful and respectful of anything the the participant is uncomfortable talking about
• Give the participant time to respond; don’t be afraid of awkward pauses
• Ask for a “tour”: note any organizations, tools, rituals, or processes that affect your participant’s perspective
• Start broad (“So to start, could you tell us how you got into this line of work?” or “What’s a day in your work-life like?”), and then slowly direct the interview toward any planned activities (“Could you share your screen and show me how you do that?”) or topic-specific questions (“How often do you file TPS reports?”)

Questions
Warm-Up
Option 1 Warm-Up—Faculty

• So to start, could you tell us how you got into this line of work?
• Can you tell me about your role at…?
• What’s a day in your work-life like?

Option 2 Warm-Up—Students

• So to start, could you tell us how long you’ve been enrolled at ?
• Can you tell me what you're majoring in?
• How do you see a day in your student-life like at the start of the fall semester?

Insight based topic questions

• Help me understand what the faculty needs to be considering when reopening campuses?
• Please share with me what students need to unlearn what they have learned when it comes to navigating campus life?
• Tell me about what challenges college students are going to face coming into the fall semester?
• Tell me about what challenges universities are going to face ahead of the fall semester?
• Tell me about what colleges need to do to incentivize students in adopting preventive COVID-19 measures?

Conduct Wrap-up

• Spend 5 minutes thanking the participant, communicating any next steps, and giving the participant a chance to ask any questions they might have.

Make sure to

• Thank the participant for their time and reiterate the value of their contributions
• Ask the participant if there was anything they think we missed or that they would like to add
• Ask if it would be okay to contact them again with any follow up questions
• Provide any agreed-upon incentives
• Turn off the recorder
• If possible, ensure the participant that they will receive a copy of what you’ve found during the research (so they know what happened with the input they gave)
• If desired, ask them who else you might talk to (fun fact: this is called snowball sampling)

Scenario: A team Member conducts an interview

• When I conduct an interview using the Script above
• Then I update the status of the candidate in the Contact Pool Spreadsheet
• And I move on to Discovery Round 2 — Insight Research, Create a Place for Interview Notes, Recordings #87