The user interview is our chance to learn about our users directly by asking them questions and observing their behavior and environment. This Interview Protocol outlines the procedure and methods for conducting user interviews.
| Section |
|---|
| Column |
|---|
| | Tip |
|---|
| title | Items Needed for an Interview |
|---|
|
|
Review the - Interviewer Training - review before conducting interviews for information on interviewee recruitment, best practices for interviewers and note-takers and procedures for note-taking and debriefing.
- Consent Form - each interviewee must understand and sign this before an interview.
- Interview Script - introduction, questions and topics to cover in an interview.
- (optional) Sample Interview Notes - have a look if you are wondering how to format your final notes.
|
|
| Column |
|---|
| | Info |
|---|
| title | What to do after completing an interview |
|---|
| - Have a debriefing session with your interview team soon after your interview to review the interview, add to and clean up notes.
- Upload your cleaned up, anonymized notes at the Interviewer Group Google Group.
- Email the Data Analysis Group with 1-hour times over the course of a week that your interview team will be available to have a phone conference to review the interview. Depending on the notes and the complexity of the interview, we may not need to meet for the full one hour.
|
|
|
Interviewee Consent Form
...
You may be interested, however, in seeking IRB approval at your institution for your user interviews. This would allow you to do your own analysis of the data you have collected and publish the results. This project likely qualifies has qualified as an exempt IRB case, so IRB processing may be a far faster process than normal. More information on IRB processing coming soon ...at a number of institutions. The IRB application for exempt projects is usually faster than standard IRB applications. For more questions on IRB or to see sample exempt applications, please email us.
Interview Script
...
| Panel |
|---|
Give the interviewee a big Thank You! What did you think of this interview? Anything you did not understand? Anything that made you anxious? Is there anything else regarding use of scholarly resources in preparing or conducting your courses that you would like to add? Would you be willing to be contacted with follow-up questions? Would you be willing to be contacted about providing feedback on prototypes we design? |
Note-taking
...
- Try and capture every word the user says!
- Take notes directly on a laptop if the note-taker is a fast typist
- Taking notes by hand (can be useful in creating diagrams) or making an audio recording are also suitable options if the note-taker is more comfortable with these methods. We do require that interview notes shared with the rest of the group be typed up. Taking notes by hand or audio recording and then transcribing them may take a significant amount of time.
- Abbreviations are helpful, paraphrasing is OK
- Try and record especially poignant quotes directly and mark them as quotes (i.e. "The library is too overwhelming to approach cold.")
- Raw notes do not need to be perfect
- Clean up notes during debrief soon after the interview
- It's OK for the note-taker to ask to repeat something or ask for clarification (without interrupting the instructor too much)
- in between questions are a good time
- If the interviewer comes up with new questions, record them in the notes
Post-interview Debrief
- Arrange a debriefing session as soon as possible after the interview
- Discuss and record your initial general impressions from the interview in the Debriefing Notes section at the end of the Interview Script
- Save a second file (Save as...) as the "clean" version of the notes
- Go through the notes removing any personally identifiable information (names, non-work related places, etc.)
- Names/places should be substituted with anonymous titles:
- Gaurav Bhatnagar helped me ... --> [a faculty colleague] helped me ...
- Go through the notes adding text to make the notes understandable by those outside of the interview
- Complete fragmented sentences or thoughts
- Expand abbreviations
After debriefing with your interview team:
- Upload your cleaned up, anonymized notes at the Interviewer Group Google Group.
- Email the Data Analysis Group with 1-hour times over the course of a week that your interview team will be available to have a phone conference to review the interview. Depending on the notes and the complexity of the interview, we may not need to meet for the full one hour.