Design Considerations
Requirements Gathering
Envisionment Methods
Evaluation
Other
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Interviews
What is An Interview?
- May be used in conjunction with other techniques such as Ethnographic
techniques or Technology Tours.
- Interviews should be thematic yet open-ended and discursive to allow
the participant to direct the process somewhat.
- Extracts of interviews can be made to highlight details of particular
interest.
- Habib et al (2002) used this technique to develop ‘family portraits’
where Hindus et al (2001) developed ‘day in the life of…’
portraits. Guided Speculation (Blythe et al, 2002) is another form of
interview which may also be used to generate ideas.
Structured interview example
- Structured interviewing has a
- specific, predetermined agenda
- specific questions to guide and direct the interview
- more of an interrogation than unstructured interviewing, which
is closer to a conversation.
An extract from a structured interview about a student information system:
Thinking about the Department’s web site, about how often have you
have used these features during the last week:
Timetable not at all / most days / every day / more than
once a day
Staff pages not at all / most days / every day / more than
once a day
Module data not at all / most days / every day / more than
once a day
- interviewer can explain questions
- but interviewee limited to pre-set replies
Unstructured interview example
- Unstructured interviewing methods are used during the earlier stages
of usability evaluation.
- The objective is to gather as much information as possible concerning
the user's experience.
- The interviewer does not have a well-defined agenda and is not concerned
with any specific aspects of the system.
- The primary objective is to obtain information on procedures adopted
by users and on their expectations of the system.
Some useful questions
- Tell me about your typical day
- Tell me three good things about…
- …and three bad things
- What if you had three wishes to make the application better?
- What has gone wrong with the application recently?
- How did you cope?
- What else should we have asked about?
Why Use it
Data can be gathered relatively easily and audio recorded for analysis.
Participants Needed
Experts
One usability expert is required for the exercise.
users
At least 2 users are required, but more users increase the validity of
the findings.
Task List
- Introduce yourself
- Explain the goals of the interview
- Reassure about the ethical issues - privacy, rights to information
- Ask to record,
- Present and have the user sign an informed
consent form (.doc) / informed
consent form (.rtf).
- Record the interview. Making notes is often a distraction to the subject
- Make first questions easy & non-threatening.
- Phrase the questions in an open or neutral way. Also, encourage the
user to reply with full sentences, rather than a simple "yes"
or "no". For example, ask, "What do you think of this feature?"
and not "Did you like this new feature?"
- Do not ask leading questions. For example, "how did that poorly
designed dialog affect you?"
- Include instructions about the answer. For example, answers can range
from lengthy descriptions, to briefer explanations, to identification
or simple selection, to a simple "yes" or "no".
- Do not agree or disagree with the user; remain neutral.
- Use probes to obtain further information after the original question
is answered (especially during the earlier stages of usability testing).
Probes are used to encourage the subjects to continue speaking, or to
guide their response in a particular direction so a maximum amount of
useful information is collected. Types of probes include:
- Addition probe encourages more information or clarifies certain
responses from the test users. Either verbally or nonverbally the
message is, "Go on, tell me more," or "Don't stop."
- Reflecting probe, by using a nondirective technique, encourages
the test user to give more detailed information. The interviewer can
reformulate the question or synthesize the previous response as a
proposition.
- Directive probe specifies the direction in which a continuation
of the reply should follow without suggesting any particular content.
A directive probe may take the form of "Why is the (the case)?"
- Defining probe requires the subject to explain the meaning of a
particular term or concept.
- Include a few easy questions to defuse tension at the end
- Thank interviewee
- Switch recorder off
Conditions required
- Private Room
- Recording Equipment
- Prewritten Questions
- Informed Consent Form
Limitations Of method
- Data is second hand and subjective so corruption of data may occur unbeknownst
to the researcher.
- Data may not be as reliable as that of purely ethnographic studies and
field work may have to be carried out for verification.
Need to avoid:
- Long questions
- Compound sentences - split into two
- Jargon & language that the interviewee may not understand
- Leading questions that make assumptions e.g., why do you like …?
- Unconscious biases e.g., gender stereotypes
Exercise - Interview Design
- In pairs, design two interviews, one unstructured and one structured
regarding the experience of using a tutorial system for flash / dreamweaver
etc
- Consider:
- what do you want to learn? - ease of use, knowledge gained, interest
levels, navigability, usefulness, logical structure
- in how much detail?
- One team member should conduct a structured interview on a non-team
member.
- The other team member should conduct an unstrucured interview on a non-team
member.
- Compare results.
- Was one method more effective?
- Which one?
- Why?
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