Behind the Glass: Introduction to Interview Techniques for Non-Researchers

April 30, 2021

Senior Design Strategist Malaika Simmons from Tantus Technologies shared Behind the Glass: Introduction to Interview Techniques for Non-Researchers.

During the program, Malaika:

• Uncovered the impact of interviewing,
• Provided best practices for formulating questions, 
• Introduced other ethnographic methods, and
• Facilitated breakout sessions for attendees to experiment with ethnographic techniques.

Question

We were not able to get to one question during the Q&A: How do you decide how many people to interview? Post-program, Malaika added: "The sample size depends on several factors, the size and complexity of the user base is one. If you have a larger user base overall that has subgroups, it may be necessary to get representation from several different sub groups as their roles may make experience different. The length is decided both by the users availability (try not to over inconvenience participants) and the depth of information you want to gather. Do you just want to know color preferences and aesthetics or are you trying to understand a very detailed business process? Consider the size of the solution and measure that against the research effort."