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8.3 Applications of interviews in HCI research 191

allow for easy upgrading of appearance and features, and repurposing phones for
other purposes, such as museum guides.
The Finding and Reminding and Green Living Interviews sidebars provide in-
depth descriptions of two examples of the use of exploratory interviews for improv-
ing understanding of user needs, in the interest of building tools to meet these needs.

FINDING AND REMINDING
In the early 1980s, desktop information systems were relatively new and
understanding of how people should organize information was incomplete
at best. The desktop model (with files, folders, and other items that might be
found on an office desk) was gaining popularity at this time. Thomas Malone, a
researcher at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, noticed that although desktop
interfaces claimed to mimic how people worked at their desks, this argument was
not supported by research. None of the proposed desktop systems had any basis
in research into how people actually organized information (Malone, 1983).
To address this shortcoming, Malone interviewed 10 workers in their
offices. At the start of each interview, the interviewee would describe the
layout of their office, indicating where information was stored and why. The
interviewer did not ask any structured questions during this tour, but he did ask
for clarifications. At the end of the interviews, some interviewees were asked
to find documents (suggested by coworkers who believed that those documents
would be in that office). All participants were asked the following set of
questions about their practices:
1. How well organized would you say your office is on a scale from 1 to 5?
[1 = not very well organized, 3 = about average, and 5 = very well organized]
2. What would you say are the biggest problems you have with the way your
office is organized?
3. Do you keep lists of things to do?
4. Do you keep a calendar of appointments?
5. How often are you unable to find something you are looking for in your
office? [Number of times per week or month]
6. How often do you forget to do something you were supposed to do?
[Number of times per week or month]

The analysis of the data took several forms. Two participants—one with
a “neat” office and another with a “messy” office—were described in detail
to illustrate very different approaches. Malone divided participants into these
categories based on his observations and used the answer to the question 1 as
validation: the people he rated as “messy” all had low scores, while the “neat”
people had high scores. Photographs were used to verify that the messy people
had more piles.
(Continued)