Interviews & Observations

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Interviewing and Observing : because using a chainsaw and a spoon to get the juicy information out of people’s heads is wrong.

Purpose of Interviews & Observations 

For thousands of years, philosophers and thinkers have observed the critical gap between what people say and what they do. This reflects a universal truth: stated intent does not always align with behaviour (or reality), which is why we observe as well as interview.
Don Norman (one of the godfathers of modern UX) put’s it well:

“What people say, what people do, and what people say they do, are entirely different things.” – Don Norman, NN/g Group

We have an Org Chart and a User Type document full of interviewees – now it’s time to use them. Strictly speaking this step in the problem solving process includes more than interviews and observations (it can also include surveys, user data analysis, remote and unscripted interviews etc) – these are simply the most revealing and effective elements of this step.
At this point we are trying to understand what the user does, what they experience, good and bad. We want to know what works to deliver the business goals and what doesn’t. Where there is friction, where do they cut corners, what is already optimal, what’s missing, where are the gaps and failures of the service etc.

There are important tasks in this step that I won’t go into detail about here: Interview script creation, interviewee selection/screening, interviewee agreements, interview/observation schedule & location, tangential topics, note taker, etc.

Value of Interviews and Observations

There are many direct and indirect values:

1. In terms of training ourselves as researchers and objective listeners, nothing challenges the problem solver like interviews and observations. We learn to recognise and remove our own assumptions, biases and ideologies so that we can understand the information behind the subject’s words and actions objectively, without judgement and truly understand the problem(s) to be solved.
2. Thematic and impactful insights – significant needs, problems or omissions.
3. We uncover tangential or additional systems, departments and problems
4. Helps us to get to the root cause of the stated problem(s) and reveal the problem’s true scope – aligning it and the Problem Statement.
5. User Types – identifies ‘linchpin’ and other employees – if not already known – allowing us to update the DM & SME Org Chart and User Types
6. Helps us generally refine and crystallise the DM & SME Org Chart
7. Reveals required Services, User Needs and Use Cases – their creation or modification
8. Reveals work culture – that may be impactful to both the problem and the solution
9. Validation or definition of one or more measurable Value Metric
10. Identifying where insights align with project goals and business strategies, building trust in the value of research activities and helping decision makers, project owners and stakeholders deliver on their strategic targets.
11. Ultimately this provides a single source of truth so that the entire project team can make optimal solution decisions that align and presents us with the opportunity to ask follow up questions or critical additional research.

Who They’re Valuable To

Team members gain varying value from the results of Interviews and Observations”

• UX/Service Design Team: useful for onboarding, sharing, brainstorming and collaboration
• Developers: useful for validation of requirements and solution architecture, technology decisions
• Systems Architects: useful for strategic and tactical technology decisions
• Project Leaders and Stakeholders: useful for presenting focussed decision data – “here are the facts”, instead of open free for all assumptive – “What do you think?”. Shows alignment with business strategy, their delivery responsibilities and value for the organisation.

Anatomy of an Interview/Observation Document

These spreadsheets allow us to schedule agreed interviews and observation times/dates with identified subjects, record contact details, set out interview script, record verbatim responses and extrapolate thematic insights, write follow up notes and questions, and demonstrate how insights deliver on project goals and business strategy.

Examples

NB. For security clearance and NDA reasons, some elements of the example files may be redacted, changed or removed.