Semi structured interview
Neither fully exploratory nor fully structured, this Design Anthropology technique has the researcher having a small interview plan in hand, but questions are still open ended with few of them more specific to keep the participant on track with the theme & plan.
“Conducted conversationally with one respondent at a time, the Semi-structured interview employs a blend of closed- and open-ended questions, often accompanied by follow-up why or how questions. The dialogue can meander around the topics on the agenda—rather than adhering slavishly to verbatim questions.”
Nature & context
Design Anthropology, User Research
Resources
Set of specific questions to provide a basic structure, open ended questions, notes, recorder.
Procedure
Resembles open ended interview with the only difference being the question set, where some questions are specific to form a structure while the rest of them are open ended.
Before: Understand the context and identify themes to focus on. Recruit participant(s) who is relevant to the design context and conduct some background research to draft open ended questions. Curate a list of structured, specific as well as open ended questions to lead the conversation.
During: Record extensive notes giving attention to details, especially in relevance to the community and culture. Voice record the conversation (specifically important as the participant shares a lot of details verbally). Use the specific question set to keep conversation on track.
After: Quickly conduct an analysis, right after, of the notes as well as other records generated like voice notes and record/annotate your insights. Send out a thank you note to the participant.
Use Case
In the mid research phases of the waste management project, we used walking probe to understand the community level waste management technique with the help of a local community member (Carrie). While we had the notes prepared, to ensure that all key details are recorded, the probing questions were minimal, to include design context while most of them were open ended to let Carrie lead the conversation. This way, while the focus remained on waste management techniques within the community, we uncovered new insights from Carrie's statements.
Sense Making Data
As an exploratory research technique, focus needs to be on new information being provided by the participant that can initiate further research, but care needs to be taken to ensure that the data being analyzed still fits the key design context.