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104 Part 2 • InformatIon requIrements analysIs

Interviewing
Before you interview someone, you must, in effect, interview yourself. You need to know your
biases and how they will affect your perceptions. Your education, intellect, upbringing, emotions,
and ethical framework all serve as powerful filters for what you will be hearing in your interviews.
You need to thoroughly think through an interview before you go. Visualize why you are
going, what you will ask, and what will make it a successful interview in your eyes. You must
anticipate how to make the interview fulfilling for the individual you interview, as well.
An information-gathering interview is a directed conversation with a specific purpose that
uses a question-and-answer format. In the interview, you want to get the opinions of the inter-
viewee and his or her feelings about the current state of the system, organizational and personal
goals, and informal procedures for interacting with information technologies.
Above all, seek the opinions of the person you are interviewing. Opinions may be more
important and more revealing than facts. For example, imagine asking the owner of a traditional
store who has recently added an online store how many customer refunds she typically gives for
Web transactions each week. She replies, “About 20 to 25 a week.” When you monitor the trans-
actions and discover that the average is only 10.5 per week, you might conclude that the owner
is overstating the facts and the problem.
Imagine instead that you ask the owner what her major concerns are and that she replies, “In
my opinion, customer returns of goods purchased over the Web are way too high.” By seeking
opinions rather than facts, you discover a key problem that the owner wants addressed.
In addition to opinions, you should try to capture the feelings of the interviewee. Remember
that the interviewee knows the organization better than you do. You can understand the organi-
zation’s culture more fully by listening to the feelings of the respondent.
Goals are important information that can be gleaned from interviewing. Facts that you
obtain from hard data may explain past performance, but goals project the organization’s future.
Try to find out as many of the organization’s goals as possible from interviewing. You may not
be able to determine goals through any other data-gathering methods.
The interview is also a valuable opportunity to explore key HCI (human–computer interac-
tion) concerns, including the ergonomic aspects, system usability, how pleasing and enjoyable
the system is, and how useful it is in supporting individual tasks.
In the interview, you are setting up a relationship with someone who is probably a stranger
to you. You need to build trust and understanding quickly, but at the same time you must main-
tain control of the interview. You also need to sell the system by providing needed information
to your interviewee. Do so by planning for the interview before you go so that conducting it is
second nature to you. Fortunately, effective interviewing can be learned. As you practice, you
will see yourself improving. Later in the chapter, we discuss joint application design (JAD) (pro-
nounced as “jad,” rhymes with add), which can serve as an alternative to one-on-one interview-
ing in certain situations.

Five Steps in Interview Preparation
The five major steps in interview preparation are shown in Figure 4.1. These steps include a
range of activities, from gathering basic background material to deciding who to interview.
Reading BackgRound MateRial. It’s important to read and understand as much background
information about the interviewees and their organization as possible. This material can often
be obtained on the corporate website, from a current annual report, a corporate newsletter, or
any publications sent out to explain the organization to the public. Check the Internet for any
corporate information, such as information from Standard & Poor’s.

Figure 4.1
Steps in Planning the Interview
Steps a systems analyst follows in
planning an interview.
1. Read background material.
2. Establish interviewing objectives.
3. Decide whom to interview.
4. Prepare the interviewee.
5. Decide on question types and structure.