Interviews
In this phase of our research, we rely on open-minded observation and loosely structured, open-ended interviews. We do this because we have to quickly grasp as much as possible about the thoughts and feelings within the organisation, and what the conceptual space is. (will explain more here)
In this post we will explain how we prepare, conduct and process qualitative interviews.
Preparation
In preparing for an interview, we first and foremost consider who the interviewee is. This means checking if background information is available on the web, and consider specific questions that are especially relevant to ask in terms of how we think they can contribute to our project.
At this point in the process, when we do not have a clear problem statement to enquire about, the challenge becomes to come up with open-ended questions that we deem will provide us with relevant information.
We have dealt with this challenge differently, depending on whether we are interviewing someone inside or outside the organisation.
We have been eager to interview people outside of the organisation in order to get a deeper understanding of the conceptual space our project operates within. By this we mean, what approaches to the university and research library exists? Where are trends pointing towards? What a current challenges and what kind of future actions are discussed in the community?
In terms of understanding the organisation, we first of all take care to ask questions that relate to the interviewee’s everyday experience, but from there we try to ask questions that as smoothly as possible uncovers the interactions between different levels of divisions within the organisation as a whole. How
Conducting
The way we then go about conducting the interview, is that we have 1) make sure to record the whole seance with the interviewee’s permission. 2) Designate one of us as notetaker, and the other one as interviewer. This allows for a more natural, attentive conversation, without having to look down into the notebook during the interview. 3) We make sure to have the person in front of us relax, by not asking directly about the subject-matter, but starting out with friendly, contextual questions that are not “dangerous” to any party. The opposite would be to ask divisive questions right after we sat down. 4) As a little trick learned from a mentor, we always leave the recorder on while we are standing up and saying good bye. Right in that moment, people relax and often reflect on the whole interview at once and provide comments that frame the whole.
Post-Processing
After we have done the interview, we conduct a so-called daily interpretive analysis (DIA). This activity is outlined in this instructor’s note from Miami University: Collecting and analysing interview data.
The main reason for conducting an interpretive analysis daily is that the data gathered through an hour-long semi-structured interview, is quite fragile. As the conversation goes on, insights appear and directs the interview. These interviews can be really interesting, but the notes taken or even the audio recording can seldom capture all the small cues that made the conversation interesting in the first place. Coming back to your notes after a week or more, it is already difficult to recall those cues and stray-thoughts that inspired you during the conversation. The data is fragile because it can decay in this way. Quantitative data, on the other hand, is not as contextual as the numbers or the analysis does not change.
We perform the DIA by writing out and sharing notes about the interviews in the evening or during the next day. We discuss what was the most important things we noticed, and we write those insights down. In doing this, we preserve the insights that an interview spurs.
