Aperte.org Jeremy Handcock

I'm behind in my blog reading lately and I just now came across Whitney Hess's great post My Best Advice for Conducting User Interviews. If you're new to interviewing, I highly recommend checking out her tips to see what it's all about. Her advice is applicable whether you're doing casual or empirical user research.

I also highly recommend checking out the more substantial reference Learning From Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies by Robert S. Weiss. It's a wonderful book complete with methods and advice for every stage of the interviewing process including participant selection, preparation, conducting the interview, taking notes, analysis, and presentation. I bought this book when I was in graduate school to prepare for interviews with my research participants and it was immensely helpful. It's also highly approachable, even if you don't know anything about research.

Conducting interviews is actually my favourite part of doing user research. I love talking to people about their work, learning about how they work, and listening to their stories. It's hard work (and as Whitney says, it can be pretty mentally exhausting) but going in prepared will make the process much more fulfilling. Enjoy these two references, and happy interviewing!