A discussion of our in-class interviewing process #Design 100

The process I will be discussing today is the practice interview process we did in week three’s studio. Interviewing is a method for collecting data that is a part of the first stage of the design process in the double diamond framework. Not only will I outline the process I participated in, I will also examine the type of interview we did and provide an analysis of the questions on our interview guide and why it was significant, although we might not have realised at the time.

In class, we were asked to design a solution to address one of the following problems:

- Time management

- Meeting new people

- Keeping motivated

I picked “keeping motivated”.

We were then asked to write an interview guide; 5 questions to understand the problem, its root causes and why it exists. We then worked with a partner/partners with the same problem to refine our interview guide. Lastly, we interviewed another group, who also interviewed us back with their own set of questions.

This was our interview guide:

This is called a semi-structured qualitative interview, which is an interview that follows an interview guide (set of questions) but an interview method which also allows for further questions and deeper discussions. (Flick, 2009) and (Edwards & Holland, 2013). In a studio environment where the focus group are people we know and with whom we share similar demographic characteristics, ie. similar ages, same occupation as students and similar problems—motivation, time management and meeting new people, this interview worked more like a conversation.

The advantages of a semi-structured group-focused interview are, interviewees have more space to answer on their own terms and more control of the interview, for example, they can even redirect the question back to the interviewer, which was what happened in our interview. (Edwards & Holland, 2013). Moreover, a focus group was useful because it allowed participants to bounce ideas off each other, which enriched the discussion. It also provided comprehensive data of the perspectives of the focus group. (Edwards & Holland, 2013).

Interestingly, and unbeknownst to us at the time, some of our questions were questions that would befit specific interviewing types, such as narrative and episodic interviewing. (Bauer & Gaskell, 2011). For example, “Tell us about a day in which you were unmotivated”. This is the type of question a narrative interviewer might begin with, because it evokes a cognitive process whereby the interviewee creates a narrative from their experience. (Bauer & Gaskell, 2011).

“On reflecting on the incident, trying actively to understand it, you are constructing an account the structure of which is essentially a narrative” (Bauer & Gaskell, 2011. Pg. 77).

The interviewee chooses what to tell and what to omit, the temporal range and the level of detail. The selectivity of their narrative are in itself worthy of analysis.

“What is being unmotivated?” this is a question that taps into semantic knowledge, which is, knowledge that is “more abstract and generalised, and decontextualized from specific situations and events”. (Bauer & Gaskell, 2011. Pg. 78) Semantic knowledge is one part of Knowledge, the other part being episodic knowledge, which is “knowledge that is linked to concrete circumstances (time, space, people, events, situations)”. (Bauer & Gaskell, 2011. Pg 78) A question that elicits episodic knowledge is “what makes you feel unmotivated?”

There were also disadvantages to our semi-structured, group-focused interview. For one, discussions were long and often off-topic. We must also consider the possibility of public performance, especially as the root causes of being unmotivated can be deeply personal. We must account for what could have been omitted in people’s answers. (Edwards & Holland, 2013).

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