For our in-class practice for this technique, we will practice conducting semi-structured interviews.
First, I’ll play the role of the interviewer while one student plays the role of the user, so that you can get a sense of what an interview session might look like. For the demo, I’ll interview a student about shopping at Costco. Here are the questions we will use for this interview:
Next, you’ll practice doing some interviewing yourself. For that we’ll focus on a system you all have experience with – the class registration system in Web4U.
- First, come up with a set of questions you would like to ask about a student’s experience with the registration system. Key things to remember:
- You want the user to describe their experiences, not interpret or evaluate them – that’s your job! Example: “Tell me about your experience the last time you used the registration system,” not “What do you think about the registration system?”
- Avoid asking questions that lead the user or suggest a particular ‘right’ answer. For example, “Have you encountered any difficulties using the registration system?” is better than “What difficulties have you encountered with the registration system?”
- Next, work in pairs to interview each other using the questions you came up with.
We’ll end by talking about what happened during your mini-interviews, and discussing strategies for eliciting the most useful information.