<p>Published on <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/understanding-people-how-to-conduct-an-interview-as-part-of-your-human-centred-design-research-750aadbfa220?source=rss----eb297ea1161a---4">| Prototyping: From UX to Front End &mdash; Medium</a> Sian Huxtable-Lee </p>
<h4>This article was written in response to a team working on a brief to understand people as part of a human-centred <br /> design research project, mainly focusing on the ‘Inspiration’ phase of the human centred design process.</h4>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*xIx2q9vx4R-EotvO-mEwRQ.png"></p>
<h4>Why do we interview people?</h4>
<p>Interviewing people can be an excellent way to gain insights from your users when taking a human-centred approach to your project. By finding out what makes your users tick, you can begin to understand their needs and desires and come up with a solution that addresses those needs.</p>
<p>According to IDEO “Interviews really are the crux of the Inspiration phase. Human-centered design is about getting to the people you’re designing for and hearing from them in their own words.” (Designkit.org, 2015)</p>
<p>Today I’m going to be taking you through some handy tips on how to conduct an interview as part of your human-centred design research project.</p>
<p>When we talk about interviews in this context,” we mean face‐to‐face verbal exchanges in which one person, the interviewer, attempts to acquire information from, and gain an understanding of, another person, the interviewee.” (Rowley, 2012).</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*0wg0LwOjo0mGWlMHE_thAQ.png"></p>
<h4>STEP 1: Create a discussion guide or interview script</h4>
<p>It’s really important to have a plan in place before you arrive at the interview to be able to get the most out of it. You should be thinking about what it is you want to discover. A great way to do this is to create a discussion guide or interview script.</p>
<p>The discussion guide “is intended to ensure that the same general areas of information are collected from each interviewee; this provides more focus than [a] conversational approach, but still allows a degree of freedom and adaptability in getting information from the interviewee.” (Turner, 2010)</p>
<p>Start General — Begin with some icebreakers. Ask some questions about a person’s life, principles and behaviours. This will help ease the participant in to the interview and warm them up, before moving on to the more specific questions that relate directly to your research topic.</p>
<p>Then Go Deep — This is where you plunge into the nitty-gritty of why you’re interviewing that person. You’re looking to unearth key things like hopes, fears, pain points, things they like about your topic and things that maybe frustrate them.</p>
<p>Try testing your questions on your team or peers and see what answers they provide to give you an idea on how open or closed your questions are, or if you’re phrasing the questions in the right way.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*o_6PsaDnybsq7NN7w52TEw.png"></p>
<h4>STEP 2: Assign team roles for the interview</h4>
<p>Before arriving to meet your participant, its best to establish the roles of the team conducting the interview. Generally speaking, it is advised that you would conduct the interview in teams no larger than 3 people; you don’t want to overwhelm the participant with a room full of people they probably haven’t met before. You should have one person take the role of the interviewer, one person should take notes and sometimes, a photographer would be present to take photos and record the audio of the interview if consent is given.</p>
<blockquote><p>Remember to be ethical. Don’t take photos or record audio without the participant’s consent first.</p></blockquote>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Lx1mCz98bWHY1jSonvQ0-g.png"></p>
<h4>STEP 3: Make observations throughout the interview</h4>
<p>Observing the body language and surroundings of the participant can often tell you as much about them as the words they say. “Recognizable signs of emotional expression and scenic practices such as direct eye contact and intimate gestures are widely understood to reveal deep truths about individual selves.” (Gubrium and Holstein. 2001, p. 11)</p>
<p>It’s useful to have all team members make observations throughout the interview and note down anything they find interesting. Where do they look when they answer? What do they do with their hands? How are they sitting? What’s on the table in front of them? What else is in the room around them? How do they reply to your questions? A great tool to have in mind is this model from IDEO, which can help you empathise with your participant.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Ndnd0hyXV5sovfWPXtO1aA.jpeg"><strong>Fig.1. IDEO Empathy Drawing. </strong>Image source: Huxtable, T. (2018.)<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*1099tlEualMN19Rp1Kwcuw.png"></p>
<h4>STEP 4: Make your participant feel comfortable</h4>
<p>It’s important to make your participant feel comfortable and relaxed when conducting an interview. Try to conduct your Interviews in the homes or offices of the people you’re designing for. (IDEO, 2015) By allowing the participant to feel relaxed around you, you’re enabling them to be more open with their answers.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*dRTcVMpzRLbtyrH9muZYDw.png"></p>
<h4>STEP 5: Understand your interviewee’s world — <em>they’re</em> the expert</h4>
<p>Get into the mindset that your participant is the expert here, and you’re talking to them because you need their knowledge. It’s vital to put aside your perceptions and biases when talking to people [because] you want to see the world through their eyes (Cooper-Wright, 2015). Your interview is about understanding your users, not about them understanding you. Let them speak. Don’t talk over them or finish their sentences. Note down everything they say, even if it’s not the answer you were looking for. This insight could be an opportunity area for you and your team to work with later on.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*jfmqR_QyREPXq4mWerpXbw.png"></p>
<h4>STEP 6: Ask open ended questions</h4>
<p>When asking your questions, make sure they don’t lead your participant to the answer you want, by keeping them as open as possible. While it’s important to have a structure for your interview, don’t be afraid to go off-piste and ask “why?” occasionally to dig even further and get those insights that can really spark a eureka moment. This will be useful during the synthesis part of your project later on. For example, if they give you a yes or no response, you can ask why and don’t be afraid to keep asking why until you get to the root of their answer. “It is fundamental to reflect and act upon the nature of the exchange between the researcher and participant. You may prompt the participant, rephrase questions, and make changes according to the interview situation.” (Galletta and Cross, 2013, p. 75)</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Gc0EmonaJVL5jtvMGzVSVQ.png"></p>
<h4>STEP 7: Leave your digital screens at the office!</h4>
<p>Having a laptop to take notes on in an interview is a complete no-no, as it sets up a physical barrier between you and the participant. By writing with a pen and a pad, the participant can see that you’re writing down notes. If you’re writing on your laptop or screen, how does the participant know you’re not talking to your mates on Facebook or watching cat GIFs? It’s really annoying for them, so don’t do it! Also, writing in ink tends to make the interviewer less precious about getting spellings and sentence structure right, meaning you can have more time to listen out for further insights.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*m3ylGGbnoFJEGURjvPJBXw.png"></p>
<h4>STEP 8: Get comfortable with silence</h4>
<p>Matt Cooper-Wright, senior design lead at IDEO says that awkward silences ‘often reveal a lot. It’s in these gaps that people reflect on their instinctive response, they question their own answer and sometimes give a more honest reply.’ (Cooper-Wright, 2015) Restraining yourself from saying something to fill in the gaps is tough — it’s human nature — but that’s why we do it in interviews. If you can sense the silence is becoming awkward, your participant will too, and it’ll be they who fill it, not you. Let them talk.</p>
<h4>Thank you</h4>
<p>There you go, this has been handy tips on how to conduct an interview as part of your human-centred design research project.</p>
<p>I hope you have found it useful and feel more confident about going out and conducting your own interviews. Let me know how you get on, or if you have any questions get in touch, I would love to hear from you.</p>
<h4>References</h4>
<p>DesignKit.org, (n.d.) <em>Interview</em> [online] Available at: <a href="http://www.designkit.org/methods/2">http://www.designkit.org/methods/2</a> [Accessed 07 Apr. 2018].</p>
<p>Rowley, J. (2012) Conducting research interviews. <em>Management Research Review</em> [online] Vol. 35(3/4), pp.260–271. Available at:https://www-emeraldinsightcom.ezproxy.tees.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1108/01409171211210154 [Accessed 07 Apr. 2018].</p>
<p>Turner, D. W., III (2010). Qualitative interview design: A practical guide for novice investigators. <em>The Qualitative Report</em> [online] 15(3), pp. 754–760. Available at: <a href="http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR15-3/qid.pdf">http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR15-3/qid.pdf</a> [Accessed 07 Apr. 2018].</p>
<p>Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J. A. (2001). <em>Handbook of Interview Research: Context &amp; Method</em> . London: Sage Publications, Inc. (pp. 4–11) Available at: <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id">https://books.google.co.uk/books?id</a> =N5leBAAAQBAJ&amp;printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false [Accessed 07 Apr. 2018].</p>
<p>IDEO Empathy Drawing. Huxtable, T. (2018.) Empathy Drawing. [Keynotes presentation] IDEO. [Accessed 28 Feb. 2018].</p>
<p>IDEO. (2015) <em>Field Guide to Human-Centred Design</em>. 1st ed. [pdf] San Francisco, IDEO. Available at: <a href="http://www.designkit.org/resources/1">http://www.designkit.org/resources/1</a> [Accessed 28 Mar. 2018].</p>
<p>Cooper-Wright, M. (2015). How to run a Design Research Interview [online] <em>Medium</em>. Available at: <a href="https://medium.com/design-research-methods/how-to-run-a-design-research-interview-576d14806dfd">https://medium.com/design-research-methods/how-to-run-a-design-research-interview-576d14806dfd</a> [Accessed 05 Apr. 2018].</p>
<p>Galletta, A., &amp; Cross, W. (2013). Conducting the Interview: The Role of Reciprocity and Reflexivity. <em>Mastering the Semi-Structured Interview and Beyond: From Research Design to Analysis and Publication</em> (pp. 75–118). New York; London: NYU Press. Available at: <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qgh5x.8">http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qgh5x.8</a> [Accessed 07 Apr. 2018].</p>
<p>Cooper-Wright, M. (2015). How to run a Design Research Interview [online] <em>Medium</em>. Available at: <a href="https://medium.com/design-research-methods/how-to-run-a-design-research-interview-576d14806dfd">https://medium.com/design-research-methods/how-to-run-a-design-research-interview-576d14806dfd</a> [Accessed 05 Apr. 2018].</p>
<h4>Images</h4>
<p>IDEO Empathy Drawing. Huxtable, T. (2018.) Empathy Drawing. [Keynotes presentation] IDEO. [Accessed 28 Feb. 2018].</p>
<p><iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fupscri.be%2Ff51076%3Fas_embed%3Dtrue&amp;dntp=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fupscri.be%2Ff51076%2F&#038;image=https%3A%2F%2Fe.enpose.co%2F%3Fkey%3DdRXnS9Gplk%26w%3D700%26h%3D425%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fupscri.be%252Ff51076%252F%253Fenpose&amp;key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=upscri" width="800" height="400" frameborder="0"><a href="https://medium.com/media/b85dfbb5286d8a25cf2e754b9462cf45/href">https://medium.com/media/b85dfbb5286d8a25cf2e754b9462cf45/href</a></iframe><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=750aadbfa220" width="1" height="1" alt="stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSou"></p>
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<p><a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/understanding-people-how-to-conduct-an-interview-as-part-of-your-human-centred-design-research-750aadbfa220">Understanding People: How to conduct an interview</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io">Prototypr</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


Understanding People: How to conduct an interview

This article was written in response to a team working on a brief to understand people as part of a human-centred
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Understanding People: How to conduct an interview

This article was written in response to a team working on a brief to understand people as part of a human-centred desig…

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This article was written in response to a team working on a brief to understand people as part of a human-centred
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