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226 CHAPTER 8 Interviews and focus groups

RESEARCH DESIGN EXERCISES

1. Design and conduct an interview. Chances are pretty good that most of the people
you know have or use cell phones. They are also likely to have strong opinions
about their likes and dislikes regarding phone interface design and features.
Design an interview that you might use to understand what cell phone users
would like to see in a new generation of phone. What sort of questions would you
ask and why? How much structure would you want to have? Would you use any
props or observations? Once you have this interview designed, try it on a friend,
classmate, or colleague. What did this teach you about interviewing? Were there
questions that you should have asked but didn't? What worked well, what didn't?
2. Revisit the cell phone usage interview from Exercise 1. What would be different
if you were to collect this data via a focus group instead of interviews? Revise
the questions to account for any differences between individuals, in terms of
preferences, experiences, and needs. How might you foster discussion and
deliberation between focus group participants?
3. Revisit the cell phone usage interview from Exercise 1, but try it online this
time. Sign up for an account on an instant-messaging service (if you don't have
one already), and ask a friend or classmate to be your interviewee. Ask the same
questions that you asked before. How do the responses differ? Did you get as much
information or less? Did you notice any differences in the amount of feedback or the
quality of the responses? Which did you find most useful? Which did you prefer?

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