Structure of an interview
There are typically four phases to an interview:
- Nurturing - this is the initial warm-up to the interview when the parties to the interview introduce themselves and talk briefly about neutral topics (like the weather!) to establish themselves
- Energising - when the reason for the interview taking place is introduced
- Substantive - during which the facilitator's job is to prompt, cajole, gently direct and "hold" the session. This is the peak phase of activity. It is important at this stage for the interviewer to remain (relatively) analytical and neutral. If the interview is fairly free in structure, the respondent may direct the order of topics, and the interviewer should follow them. Otherwise the order of topics is at the interviewer's discretion. Before this phase ends, the interviewer should check whether all the topics have indeed been covered.
- Closing - where the facilitator brings the session to a close, summarising (at a superficial level) what has been leant and thanking the participants. The informant should be asked whether they thought the interview covered all the areas of concern, and whether there were issues that had not been touched upon. It is a good idea to spend a little time on how the informant felt about doing the interview, and whether there was anything that could be improved.
Benefits of interviews
Interviews allow individuals to come together and express diverse views on a topic: useful not only to find the range of views, but also for the participants to learn from each other, and to generate a sense of social cohesion.
- Because of the intimate, informal nature of the interview, what is talked about can address directly individual concerns
- Mistakes and misunderstandings can be quickly identified and cleared up
- Interview sessions are quick and easy
- The best way for quickly establishing the "emotional dimensions" of a problem or solution space
Look out for...
Interviews of all kinds might generally be unstructured and informal (there are exceptions of course) but they always need some structure:
- Create a script for the session - though by all means go off piste at any point. This will contain the kinds of questions you might to ask; ways of expressing difficult ideas; generic "prompt" questions and so on. It may be as freeform as a scribbled list of topics all the way through to a fully scripted, contingency-handing Q&A session. It is generally wise however not to be too prescriptive, to allow spontaneity in the group. Focus group session especially should feel free flowing and relatively unstructured.
- Decide how you will record the informant's responses - e.g. your memory, concurrent written notes by yourself, tape recorder, video. The maxim at all times is to not allow the data capture to get in the way of the interview experience: people may often clam up when faced with cameras or microphones
- Don't let one individual dominate the session - allow everyone to express their opinion and raise their own issues
- Make sure the atmosphere is right - willing, comfortable, relaxed people will generally be better subjects, and give you better data than subjects who are feeling ill at ease. Of course, some interviews are intended to be adverserial or even hostile (think court rooms or judicial inquiries)
- Choose your participants carefully - paired-depth interviews in particular benefit from a lack of diversity: you want the participants to be similar in outlook, so that their interactions are synergistic. Focus groups, on the other hand, will suffer if all the participants are similar. Ideally, you want difference of opinion, outlook, status and affiliation for the best - most vocal and energising - focus groups
- Be clear about your objectives - the purpose of focus groups is not consensus building. Rather, it is to obtain a range of opinions from a representative set of target users about issues to hand. Each user's point of view is of interest and it is the facilitator's task to encourage each user to express their unique points of view. The purpose of paired-depth interviews is not to generate controversy, but to foster synergistic discussion. The purpose of depth interviews is not to be argumentative or pointlessly adversersial, but to generate a detailed, accurate understanding of a single person's opinion of a narrow rage of topics.
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