UX Digest W44/2018 — Contextual Inquiry insights

Indigenous peoples often have an initiation ceremonial, which for its members indicates a transition for the childhood to an adulthood. For the User Experience professionals, the initiation happens after conducting the first usability tests or contextual inquiry.

So, I think that recently I had my “initiation” in the world of UX. First, I observed the usability tests and wrote protocol. After that I moderated a series of contextual inquiries for the very first time in my life. And here are some lessons I learned. I think that could help other beginners in this complicated and sometimes chaotic process.

1. Have clear hypothesis formulated. If you don’t have hypothesis, it is hard to come up with the questions. If there is no hypothesis, encourage the team to come up with one or t have a facilitator to help formulate
2. According to the hypothesis, start formulating questions. There are a lot of materials about interview questions. The most important thing is not to manipulate the persons. I found this article shared by a colleague very useful. The questions should be as pone as possible and cover certain tasks or important topics from the persons life. I prefer to concentrate on certain processes or objects which the person uses for the tasks or in daily life.
3. Write a script or scenario. It is useful to write everything down which has to be part of an interview not to forget anything. Important details like non-disclosure agreement about the content of the interview or rights for recordings etc.
4. Make a dry run. It is very important to make a dry run with some colleagues or persons who volunteer to test-drive the scenario and to be more confident for the first interview. The colleagues which are new to the organization are very suitable for such dry-runs because they lack of the previous knowledge and project history. Logically it makes sense to make some blocks of questions according t the topics covered.
5. Have an experienced observer. It is important to have a person who is experienced with the method and can help out if you forget the questions or when some unexpected issues come up during the process. It is important to have a good protocol with the structure of the interview, but the observer does not have to blindly stick to it and force you to mechanically follow what was defined. A good observant can help with structure if a moderator forgets or to give useful hint to grasp the main meaning of the persons answer.
6. Knowing about the interview partner helps a lot to establish connection and to come up with topics at the beginning of the conversation.
7. Explain the roles and the interview structure at the beginning . It is important that the person feels confident and secure during interview. At the beginning, it is important to explain the roles of the moderator and of the observer and the length and structure of the interview. I noticed that the persons were much relaxed after the introduction and the explanation.
8. Provide some giveaway for the participating people. The persons were very glad about the giveaway. After mentioning it at the beginning, they were looking forward to it during the interview.
9. Listen to recordings and analyze after the interviews. Nobody tells you about the “un-glamorous” part of the UX jobs, which means re-watching videos and audio recordings, cutting the most important moments of user behavior for the stakeholders and analyzing your moderation. There is always a room for improvement!