You Have to Fix Something, Wait Until the End
Documenting the Interview
Debriefing After the Interview
Optimizing the Interview
Troubleshooting Common Interview Problems
When the Participant Is Reticent
When the Participant Isn’t the Right Kind of User
When the Participant Won’t Stop Talking
When You Feel Uncomfortable or Unsafe
Interview Variations and Special Cases
When Your Interview Isn’t Face-to-Face
When Your Interview Is in a Market Research Facility
When Your Interview Is Very Short
The Differences in Interviewing Professionals vs. Consumers
Interviewing Multiple Participants
Using Different Interviewing Techniques at Different Points in the Development Process
Making an Impact with Your Research
Analyzing and Synthesizing Your Interview Data
Research as a Leadership Activity
Championing the Use of Research in Your Organization
FOREWORD
I was just looking at YouTube in a brave attempt to keep in touch with popular music, and I found the musician Macklemore doing a hip-hop celebration of the thrift store. (“Passing up on those moccasins someone else been walking in.”) Google results indicate that Macklemore is a product of Evergreen State University in Olympia, Washington. And this is interesting because Evergreen produces a lot of ferociously creative kids—wild things who care nothing for our orthodoxy, and still less for our sanctimony.
Now, our curiosity roused, we might well decide to go visit Evergreen College, because as William Gibson put it, “The future is already here; it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Evergreen would be an excellent place to look for our futures. But it wouldn’t be easy or pleasant. We would struggle to get a fix on the sheer volcanic invention taking place here. Our sensibilities would be scandalized. We would feel ourselves at sea.
And that’s where ethnography comes in. It is, hands down, the best method for making our way through data that is multiple, shifting, and mysterious. It works brilliantly to help us see how other people see themselves and the world. Before ethnography, Evergreen is a bewildering place. After ethnography, it’s a place we “get.” (Not perfectly. Not comprehensively. But the basics are there, and the bridge is built.)
And
