Method: Interview

In this chapter you will learn how to plan and perform interviews. You will also learn how to train and improve your interviewing skills. It is a fundamental practice you will use a lot when performing field studies.

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You will need to perform interviews quite often, in one way or another, so make sure to train before going to the field, and to always plan your interviews.

Key factors to a good interview, for you and your informant:

• Define the purpose of the interview
• Prepare effective questions
• Allow for questions outside the plan
• Take notes, both what your informant say and your own reflections
• Do a debrief as fast as possible after the interview
• Perform the interview as a small team to split the work
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Interviews in field studies

The “classic” form of interview is a face-to-face interview, where you sit with an informant. In field studies, interviews are more likely to take place in the midst of other things happening, for example when you interact with an informant who is engaged in work tasks.

Interviews are often classified in terms of structured, semi-structured or unstructured interviews. In field studies, we recommend semi-structured interviews where you have prepared a list of questions, but you also create space for asking questions that were not on your list.

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Before the interview

Start by defining the goals of your interview. They should be connected to the goals of the field study. Derive a few initial questions that will set the scene for your interview. You can think of the interview goals and the main questions as “a guide, but not a rule”, for your interview. This means that interview goals and the initial questions will help you setting the direction of the interview, and that you will also have the opportunity to ask other questions.

Make sure that you formulate your initial questions in a specific way. See some tips about this further down below. This is important because some types of questions, and some ways to phrase these questions, will give you richer and more articulate answers.

We also recommend to prepare a few visuals that can lead your informant to comment on an idea or a question. (More on this further down below.)

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Creating a good space for your informant(s) to participate

Before you start your interview, make sure your informant has the time to interact with you. If needed, agree beforehand on a time that suits your informant best. Your presence will most likely create an additional stress for your informant, so make sure to agree on a time and moment that is not too critical for your informant. This is important in the beginning of the field study. Once your presence is more familiar to your informants, you will have access to more situations where you can interact with them.

Create a secure and comfortable atmosphere for your interview by introducing early on the purpose of the interview and the topics you would like to deal with. Explain the measures you will take to guarantee the confidentiality of your informant.

Remember to always treat your informants as experts. You are here to learn from them. Tune your mindset to a “master-apprentice” relationship and use it to guide your behaviour and how you build your questions.

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Asking questions

Start with simple questions that do not require too much thinking, nor long answers. Listen to your informant(s) and let them freely express themselves. Always give them the time they need to think. Don’t be too quick in offering an interpretation. Awkward pauses might be a good thing, because some informants feel they must fill in the gap, thus providing additional information.

As a general rule you should aim at talking a lot less than your informant, in the order of about 10% (you) — 90% (your informants). This is challenging to assess while you are performing the interview, so we recommend to train by recording and listening to your interviews. (More on this further down below).

Make sure you are asking one question at a time. Avoid leading and complex questions. Verify your emerging understanding by rephrasing what your informants say with your own words. Don’t hesitate to give feedback about how the interview is proceeding underway: “thank you, this is very helpful because…”

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Facilitating the discussion

Using narratives is a good way to nourish a discussion. For example you can ask your informant(s) to explain you their daily work routine: “Let’s talk about a typical day at work. How do your start your day, what do you do?”. Another way to go about this type of discussion is to evoke the following scenario: “if you were to take a break, and I would be taking over for you, what should I focus upon?”.

You can also use a specific task or operation as a springboard to get more information: “Let’s say that this thing happens, or that you are doing this task. Can you describe in more details what happens/what you do?”

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Prefer to use “How & What” instead of “Why”

When you use “why” questions, your informant might experience the question as a form of judgement or confrontation, and switch to a defensive attitude. For example, instead of asking “why did you chose to work as ship crew?”, you might want to ask instead “how did you end up working as crew on this ship?” or “what made you want to work as ship crew?”

Another example is when you discuss the specific use of a system. If you want to gain more information about the actions of your informant, you can ask “what made you use this system?” instead of asking “why did you use this system?”. In this last case your informant might experience that you critiqued his or her way of using the system, that you implicitly describe it as the wrong way to do it. In the first case, you imply that the choice of your informant to use the system this way is inherently good, and you are interested in knowing more about it.

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Getting specific information

There are many formulations that can help you get specific information. Here are a few examples.

To explore the diversity of a task, you can ask: “How different is this task when you perform it under other conditions?”. When we work with field studies on ships, other conditions could include: another time of the year, when the weather gets bad, working on another ship, working for another contractor, and so on.

To explore qualitative components of the experience of your informant: “What works well? Are things better or worse around here than they used to be? Do you have the opportunity to do it like this all the time? Did you add modifications that make your life easier?”

To extract information about the critical aspects of a task: “If you were to go away for a minute to get a cup of coffee, and I was to take over your work, what should I pay attention to?” Remark: you need to have reached a good level of understanding with your informant before you ask this type of question; it could be against operational rules and restrain your informant to answer. Alternatively, you might ask: “Teach me how to do it”.

To explore risk aspects: “What events do you fear the most when you perform this task?”. “If happened now, what would you do?” “What type of accident(s) are you prepared to deal with?”

Other examples of typical questions:
“Describe a normal day, for example yesterday. What did you do yesterday?
Which systems do you use? Can different systems be used in order to execute the same task? Is there an overlap between different systems?
Are there systems that are never used? Why not?
What functions well today?
What does not work that well?
What would you suggest to improve it?”

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Using visuals

Visuals have two main roles in an interview. They can be used to illustrate questions, and to support oral communication with visual communication, for example through sketching. This means that you should consider having visual material ready before your interview, and that you should bring what you need to sketch during the interview.

We recommend our design students to actively use their design skills and work visually during interviews. The next level to communicate an idea during an interview is to prototype it, and if you have the opportunity to bring or use prototyping material on a field study, do not hesitate to do so. I have seen once a ship designer explaining a concept for a new type of ship to a captain using hand drawn sketches, and the captain started to build a model in cardboard to give his feedback on the concept.

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Taking notes and using your notes after the interview

Make sure to take detailed notes during the interview: write down the information you get from your informant, as well as your own reflections. This will help you ask follow-up questions.

Consider recording the interview to be able to go back to it. This will however not replace your notes. Remember that it is very time demanding to listen again to an interview and to write a full transcript. You can count on at least twice the duration of the interview. There are online services for audio transcription which you might use — price and quality are varying.

Do a debriefing where you clean the notes and add reflections right after the interview. If possible present your findings to the your informant after the debrief to check if you got it right. If you plan on using specific quotes from the interview, make sure that this is ok with your informant.

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Training your interviewing skills

We strongly recommend to record some interviews, in order to be able to listen to it and evaluate your own performance as interviewer: Are you leading the informant? Did you miss clues? Could you phrase the questions better? Did you treat the informant respectfully?

It is also a good practice to systematically identify questions and formulations that you feel worked well during the interview. Try to generalise them and to organise them for later use.

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Further reading

Our bible when it comes to interviews is Steinar Kvale’s book:

Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

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Credits

This chapter was written with contributions from Sigrun Lurås, Kjetil Nordby and Etienne Gernez.