Common mistakes in interviewing  Ignoring prime opportunities for probing  Interrupting  Unshakeable assumptions  Embedding answers in your questions

common mistakes in interviewingIgnoring prime opportunities for probingInterruptingUnshakeable assumptionsEmbedding answers in your questionsAsking more than one question at a time

analysing interviewstranscribing tedious but necessaryhow tedious? 1:3 ratio (interview:transcription time)memory jog making links between interviewscode as you go, but make transcript itself visually distinct from your codes

INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods

What is projective interviewing?creative strategies for eliciting description, interpretation that incorporate materials (photos, objects, diagrams etc) into the interview processbut can be distracting, time-consuming, intrusive

What is projective interviewing?PhotoelicitationPhoto diariesMapping ExercisesSpatial mapsSocial mapsToursSorting TasksPersonal construct interviewsTechnology/Cultural Probes

photographs are charged with psychological and highly emotional elements and symbols. In the depth study of culture it is often this very characteristic that allows people to express their ethos while reading the photographs. [Collier and Collier] beyond photos: stories, skitsFamily Photo Albumsphotoelicitation

mapping exercisesgeographical spacesmap of the home, neighborhoodsocial spaces (enumeration tasks)social network mappinghierarchical diagramming

hierarchical diagramming

touring spaceshome tours - to elicit responses to the material environment, comments on arrangement of spacetour of computer interiortour of a user interfacetour of a mobile phone address book, text messages, call log

sorting activitiesimages of technologies, settings, advertisements, peopleon what basis would you sort these images?pick the odd one out of a group and explain.e.g. personal construct interviews

Example 1: The Meaning of Domestic Technologies: a personal construct analysis of familial gender relations Sonia Livingstone

Topic: Looking at how husbands and wives separately experience and account for their domestic technologiesMethod: separate interviews with husband and wife, in home, for 45 minutes. Asked to sort technologies into groups and explain.outcome: women emphasize domestic technologies as necessities, different notions of control over tech, the telephone as key difference

Example 2: cultural probesPackets of information and tasks handed out to participants (w/ interviews before and/or after)Topic: attitudes of widely dispersed European elderly towards their lives, cultural environs, and technology.[Also: technology probes as a related interdisciplinary methodological approach][Gaver et al.]

Bridging the distance between lived experience and the artificiality of the interview eventAiding memory (cognitive assistance)Accessing the affective dimension of experienceEngagement and the research partnership -- keeping interviewees committed to the taskProjective Techniques: some benefits

Summary: who creates the artifact?

AuthoredArtifactProducedBy 3rd PartyMagazine adsProduced independently of the research projectFamily photosConsumer technologiesBy ResearcherTechnology probesProduced within the research projectPhoto or Card Decks (for sorting)By IntervieweePhoto diariesMaps of Salient Environs

Summary: when/where artifact is created

When ProducedPurpose Served by the ArtifactIn the course of the interview (i.e. maps, diagrams, drawings)As a memory jogDiscussion pieceAnalytical deviceIn the course of everyday life (i.e. photo diaries, photo tasks)As a memory jogClosing the distance between lived experience and the interview eventTo address access issues

Expert/Elite Interviews and Focus GroupsTuesdays class - Megan Finn, Bob Bell, Ashwin Mathew (PhD students in the iSchool) will reflect on their experiences conducting expert/elite interviews

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