Page 225 -

8.8 Conducting an interview 213

won't encourage interviewees to share more with you. This is one area where some
practice might help: you'll want to develop a poker face.
When you are conducting an interview or focus group, you are, to some extent, act-
ing as a host. When appropriate, you might consider providing simple refreshments.
A glass of water will help an interviewee or focus group participant feel comfortable
enough to keep talking. Snacks may be nice, but should be chosen carefully to respect
participants' cultural and dietary sensitivities. Loud, crunchy food is inadvisable, as it
may distract participants and interfere with audio recordings (Barbour, 2007).
Finding some common ground of shared experience or perspective is a tried-
and-true technique for building good relationships. Although this may be related to
the topic of the interview, it need not necessarily be. If an interviewee comments on
travel delays due to traffic or the need to leave early due to family obligations, you
might respond with a short personal comment indicating your understanding of those
challenges. Alternatively, you might include an initial interview question aimed at
establishing some common ground. If it's at all relevant, you might consider asking
interviewees to describe a notable technology failure: almost everyone will have a
story to tell and you can commiserate with a story of your own. If you can focus this
question on a specific technology relevant to your interview, so much the better.
As you work to establish rapport with your interviewees, be careful to avoid any-
thing that gets too personal. As the interview is about you learning from the inter-
viewee, you should be listening most of the time. Talking too much about your own
experiences is inappropriate and may make some people uncomfortable. You might
make brief comments about your own experiences or opinions whenever appropriate
and then steer the conversation back to focusing on the interviewee.

8.8.3.2 The introduction
Most interviews or focus groups follow the same general outline. You should start
with an introduction, telling the interviewees about the research and your goals. If
appropriate, this would also be a good time to complete any paperwork, including
(when necessary) the informed consent form required to document the interviewee's
agreement to participate (Chapter 15). You should also tell participants if you are
recording the session and how. For focus groups, you might use the introduction as
an opportunity to encourage differing viewpoints (Krueger, 1994).
You might want to keep the introduction to your research brief. You should not
go into too much detail regarding your goals and aims (Kvale, 2007), as a detailed
description of your aims and goals might encourage your participants to provide an-
swers that they think you would want to hear. This is particularly a concern if you're
asking about reactions to a syste that you have built. You can provide more context
after the session is over (see Section 8.8.3.5).
8.8.3.3 Getting down to business
The interview proper will start with relatively easy questions, useful for building
trust and preparing the interviewee for harder questions. Risky questions come to-
wards the end, perhaps followed by some simpler questions aimed at defusing any