1 00:00:02,313 --> 00:00:08,247 In addition to gaining insights from observing people, 2 00:00:08,247 --> 00:00:13,296 it’s also valuable to interview them — ask them about their experiences directly. 3 00:00:13,297 --> 00:00:20,298 The first step in setting up an interview is deciding who it is that you’re going to interview. 4 00:00:20,298 --> 00:00:22,345 It may seem obvious 5 00:00:22,345 --> 00:00:29,838 but the most important thing is to get people who are representative of the target users of your system — 6 00:00:29,838 --> 00:00:32,912 who are the people who are going to be using your system. 7 00:00:32,912 --> 00:00:34,488 Talk to them! 8 00:00:34,488 --> 00:00:41,657 Now they may be current users of a similar system if you’re creating a better something, 9 00:00:41,657 --> 00:00:47,137 you’ll likely find current users and you’ll want to learn what they care about, 10 00:00:47,137 --> 00:00:49,236 what problems they see. 11 00:00:49,236 --> 00:00:51,724 They might also be non-users. 12 00:00:51,724 --> 00:00:56,575 So, one reason that you might be building your technology 13 00:00:56,575 --> 00:01:01,427 is to broaden the set of people that can do a certain task 14 00:01:01,427 --> 00:01:04,765 and in that case you’ll want to talk to the non-users. 15 00:01:04,765 --> 00:01:09,812 Learn about what barriers you see, learn about what their goals are. 16 00:01:09,812 --> 00:01:13,762 Say, for example, you’re designing a lecture support system. 17 00:01:13,762 --> 00:01:16,735 Who would you interview in this case? 18 00:01:17,381 --> 00:01:23,379 There’s a lot of stakeholders: You might pick the teacher. 19 00:01:23,379 --> 00:01:27,667 You might pick the students. You might also pick the teaching staff. 20 00:01:27,667 --> 00:01:35,959 Maybe the department administrators that are responsible for making sure the grading is handled properly. 21 00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:37,452 Maybe even the parents. 22 00:01:37,452 --> 00:01:39,580 It’s important to get different types of users. 23 00:01:39,580 --> 00:01:44,635 So, you might have both the freshman and a PhD student. 24 00:01:44,635 --> 00:01:49,160 You might have a domestic student and an international student. 25 00:01:49,160 --> 00:01:51,784 Somebody that’s in major and out of major. 26 00:01:51,784 --> 00:01:53,963 Stronger and weaker students. 27 00:01:53,963 --> 00:01:57,041 There are a lot of different kinds of users. 28 00:01:57,041 --> 00:02:02,928 You can’t get them all, but you’ll want to find several different people 29 00:02:02,928 --> 00:02:07,630 who are representative of major user groups, and talk to them. 30 00:02:08,691 --> 00:02:10,688 How can you find these people? 31 00:02:10,688 --> 00:02:17,356 Well, one great strategy, if you’re in the US, is to use Craigslist. 32 00:02:17,371 --> 00:02:20,529 You can also reach out through friends and family. 33 00:02:20,529 --> 00:02:24,558 Your social network is a powerful tool for finding people to interview. 34 00:02:24,558 --> 00:02:30,387 That doesn’t just mean or even primarily mean “interview your sister”; 35 00:02:30,387 --> 00:02:33,569 it means “ask your sister whom she might know” 36 00:02:33,569 --> 00:02:39,029 or “ask your friend to put you in touch with people they might know.” 37 00:02:39,029 --> 00:02:42,547 It’s quite likely that you’ll need to pay people. 38 00:02:43,055 --> 00:02:45,558 In the Bay Area, on Craigslist, 39 00:02:45,558 --> 00:02:51,477 somewhere in the land of 50 to 100 bucks for an interview seems to be the going rate. 40 00:02:51,477 --> 00:02:57,088 This gets cheaper if you can have less specialized users. 41 00:02:57,088 --> 00:03:03,350 Also, the amount that you’ll need to pay people depends on what they believe is going to be used for. 42 00:03:03,350 --> 00:03:07,362 If you can convey that in some way you’re making the world a better place, 43 00:03:07,362 --> 00:03:11,721 people may be willing to offer their time for free, even. 44 00:03:11,721 --> 00:03:15,716 On the other hand, if they believe that something will be used for a profit, 45 00:03:15,716 --> 00:03:19,711 they’ll likely want a fair wage for their time. 46 00:03:19,711 --> 00:03:25,486 If you’re a skunkworks project and don’t have enough money to really pay people, 47 00:03:25,501 --> 00:03:29,413 one thing that you can do is offer a token of appreciation. 48 00:03:29,413 --> 00:03:36,537 People often appreciate a small thoughtful gift that they can actually use, like a gift certificate or some sort, 49 00:03:36,537 --> 00:03:38,931 than they do cash. 50 00:03:38,931 --> 00:03:42,547 For example, a couple of years ago I’ve spoken at a local high school 51 00:03:42,547 --> 00:03:47,157 and the students gave me a gift certificate to a coffee shop. 52 00:03:47,157 --> 00:03:53,386 Now, the amount of money there was not much; but I meant that every time I travelled, 53 00:03:53,386 --> 00:03:56,665 I could go in the coffee shop in the airport and get a cup of coffee 54 00:03:56,681 --> 00:04:01,157 and it reminded me of that group of students and their thoughtfulness. 55 00:04:04,572 --> 00:04:08,769 Sometimes, especially early on the design project, 56 00:04:08,769 --> 00:04:15,544 it can be difficult to get a hold of exactly the users that you believe will eventually be the target. 57 00:04:15,544 --> 00:04:20,051 In this case don’t give up completely and interview nobody. 58 00:04:20,051 --> 00:04:24,953 Do the best you can; approximate if necessary. 59 00:04:24,953 --> 00:04:28,592 For example, if you are designing a system for doctors, 60 00:04:28,592 --> 00:04:36,838 early on the project, you might need to satisfice and use medical students instead of doctors. 61 00:04:36,838 --> 00:04:42,785 Or if you are working on something for software engineers, you might get computer science students. 62 00:04:42,785 --> 00:04:46,675 Not ideal; better than nothing. 63 00:04:48,675 --> 00:04:54,972 I’ve been teaching and doing research in human-computer interaction for about 15 years now 64 00:04:54,972 --> 00:05:05,273 and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to students or others who say that there’s nothing to be found, 65 00:05:05,273 --> 00:05:11,741 that, for the problem that they’re tackling, it’s either possible or obvious. 66 00:05:11,741 --> 00:05:14,713 It’s very rarely the case that there is nothing new. 67 00:05:14,713 --> 00:05:18,812 The more mundane the domain, the more creative you need to be. 68 00:05:18,812 --> 00:05:22,029 If you don’t believe me, Malcolm Gladwell the writer 69 00:05:22,029 --> 00:05:28,930 has a wonderful explanation in the introduction to his new book of collective stories « What the Dog [Saw] ». 70 00:05:28,930 --> 00:05:35,590 “The trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell. 71 00:05:35,590 --> 00:05:40,909 I say trick, but what I really mean is challenge, because it’s a very hard thing to do. 72 00:05:40,909 --> 00:05:45,101 Shampoo doesn’t seem interesting? Well, dammit, it must be, and if it isn’t, 73 00:05:45,101 --> 00:05:48,893 I have to believe that it will ultimately lead me [to something] that is.” 74 00:05:48,893 --> 00:05:54,506 “The other trick to finding ideas is figuring out the difference between power and knowledge. 75 00:05:54,506 --> 00:05:58,217 You don’t start at the top if you want to find the story. 76 00:05:58,217 --> 00:06:04,206 You start in the middle, because it’s the people in the middle who do the actual work in the world. 77 00:06:04,206 --> 00:06:07,718 My friend Dave, who taught me about ketchup, is a middle guy. 78 00:06:07,718 --> 00:06:11,120 He’s worked on ketchup. That’s how he knows about it. 79 00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:15,731 People at the top are self-conscious about what they say (and rightfully so) 80 00:06:15,731 --> 00:06:18,584 because they have position and privilege to protect — 81 00:06:18,599 --> 00:06:22,545 and self consciousness is the enemy of ‘interestingness.’” 82 00:06:22,545 --> 00:06:25,668 “In ‘The Pitchman’ you’ll meet Arnold Morris, who gave me the pitch 83 00:06:25,668 --> 00:06:30,600 for the ‘Dial-O-Matic’ vegetable slicer one summer day in his kitchen on the Jersey Shore: 84 00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:32,772 ‘Come on over, folks. 85 00:06:32,772 --> 00:06:36,882 I’m going to show you the most amazing slicing machine you have ever seen in your life,’ he began. 86 00:06:36,882 --> 00:06:42,647 He picked up a package of barbecue spices and used it as a prop. 87 00:06:42,647 --> 00:06:48,304 ‘Take a look at this!’ He held it in the air as if he were holding up a Tiffany vase. 88 00:06:48,304 --> 00:06:53,070 That’s where you find stories, in someone’s kitchen on the Jersey Shore.” 89 00:06:54,793 --> 00:06:58,003 What makes a good question when you’re interviewing? 90 00:06:58,003 --> 00:07:04,489 Let’s look an example and you can decide whether you think this is a good question. 91 00:07:04,489 --> 00:07:11,763 Our question is: “Is the daily update an important feature to you?” 92 00:07:11,763 --> 00:07:16,605 My guess when asked a question like this is that most users would say “Yes.” 93 00:07:16,605 --> 00:07:18,968 It’s kind of a leading question. 94 00:07:18,968 --> 00:07:22,618 Most people, when asked if something’s important, “Sure, why not?” 95 00:07:22,618 --> 00:07:24,591 What’s at stake? Why would you say no? 96 00:07:24,591 --> 00:07:30,827 If you wanted to learn about the daily update, participant observation might be a lot more effective 97 00:07:30,827 --> 00:07:35,890 because you could see whether people actually use the daily update 98 00:07:35,890 --> 00:07:39,671 or you might even use log files as a way of driving your questions. 99 00:07:39,671 --> 00:07:48,423 So, for example, you might ask somebody, “I see from the log that you’ve never used the daily update. 100 00:07:48,423 --> 00:07:50,761 Why is that? Tell me more.” 101 00:07:50,761 --> 00:07:58,233 Especially early on, the more open-ended your questions are, the more interesting the answers that you’ll get. 102 00:08:06,402 --> 00:08:10,785 Remember — back to our Walmart example — they asked a leading question: 103 00:08:10,785 --> 00:08:13,383 “Would you like stories with less clutter?” 104 00:08:13,383 --> 00:08:18,176 The answer, of course, is “yes”, but it may not be what people would actually want. 105 00:08:19,269 --> 00:08:24,348 Here’s another example of a question: “What would you like in a tool?” 106 00:08:24,348 --> 00:08:29,981 The problem with this question, at least as a beginning or primary question, 107 00:08:29,981 --> 00:08:33,522 is that users are experts in their own lives. 108 00:08:33,522 --> 00:08:40,811 They’re not experts in design — that’s your role — so people may not know what to say. 109 00:08:40,811 --> 00:08:45,290 There’s a famous fable in design attributed to Henry Ford where he says that, 110 00:08:45,290 --> 00:08:49,737 “if I asked people what they wanted in the age of the horse and buggy, 111 00:08:49,737 --> 00:08:54,183 what they’d say they want is a faster horse.” 112 00:08:54,183 --> 00:08:58,863 And of course we know that the designers used the possibility of the car, 113 00:08:58,863 --> 00:09:03,542 but users may not know about that yet. 114 00:09:03,542 --> 00:09:11,115 Instead, it’s more valuable to ask users about their own lives and their own goals. 115 00:09:11,115 --> 00:09:14,008 That’s what people are experts in. 116 00:09:14,962 --> 00:09:22,924 Here are three other types of questions to avoid because people aren’t very good at self report for them; 117 00:09:22,924 --> 00:09:29,819 Asking people what they would do or like or want in a hypothetical scenario — too hard to know. 118 00:09:31,581 --> 00:09:36,443 Asking us how often we do things — We often lie to ourselves. 119 00:09:36,443 --> 00:09:42,860 For example, “How often do you exercise?” Most people overestimate in their answer to that question. 120 00:09:44,245 --> 00:09:50,605 Other questions about how are things similar. This works better if you can make things concrete. 121 00:09:50,605 --> 00:09:56,693 “How much do I exercise in a typical week?” — Not very reliable. 122 00:09:56,693 --> 00:10:02,738 “How much did I exercise this week?” Well, I’m likely to give more truthful answer to that one. 123 00:10:02,738 --> 00:10:06,863 It’s more concrete, and more recent in my memory. 124 00:10:06,863 --> 00:10:11,809 I suggest also avoiding asking people how much they like things on an absolute scale: 125 00:10:11,809 --> 00:10:15,278 What does “seven” mean? 126 00:10:15,278 --> 00:10:20,114 Finally, avoid binary questions, things that have a yes or no answer. 127 00:10:20,114 --> 00:10:24,938 “Do you like grapefruit?” – “Yes.” Not a very interesting interview. 128 00:10:25,199 --> 00:10:28,240 So what are good questions? 129 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:33,978 Especially at the beginning of an interview, I recommend open-ended questions. 130 00:10:33,978 --> 00:10:38,761 After asking the question, give somebody a chance to respond. 131 00:10:38,761 --> 00:10:42,351 A little bit of silence is golden. 132 00:10:46,089 --> 00:10:52,631 When I first started teaching, I made a mistake that a lot of young teachers make: 133 00:10:52,631 --> 00:10:58,510 I would ask the class for a question, and after 17 milliseconds, when nobody had answered, 134 00:10:58,510 --> 00:11:01,404 I would jump in and offer the question myself. 135 00:11:01,404 --> 00:11:09,019 I trained the students that they didn’t need to be part of the class, that I would always answer every question. 136 00:11:09,019 --> 00:11:11,652 There is no reason to participate. 137 00:11:11,652 --> 00:11:14,739 One of my colleagues taught me to wait a little longer. 138 00:11:14,739 --> 00:11:20,227 And it’s amazing, even in a quiet classroom, before students are used to interacting, 139 00:11:20,227 --> 00:11:23,898 let those few seconds of silence happen and people will start to chime in. 140 00:11:23,913 --> 00:11:26,434 The same is true in interviews. 141 00:11:26,434 --> 00:11:31,417 You may get a quick answer at first. Let some silence happen. 142 00:11:31,417 --> 99:59:59,999 After a few seconds, you’ll hear the second story. And the second story is often a lot more interesting.