User needs assessments can be conducted for a wide range of products and services. One example that you might think about is how to improve the situation at airport security. Now, anybody who's been through airport security has often found the process to be frustrating. The reality is it's already been reasonably well-designed but there are certainly many improvements that this kind of security line could have. Now, if you were going into this situation, you'd want to interview probably the people who are the guards at the security who conduct all the security protocols, as well as all the customers who go through security, and possibly even the managers who oversee the security process. But you wouldn't want to do this without some kind of preparation. The preparation is in understanding what kind of questions you'd ask, what's the actual focus of your interviews, who do you want to interview, and what kind of different questions would you ask each of them. So, this is where the interview protocol comes in. An interview protocol is basically a guideline for how to conduct an interview. You will have different components and I personally stress that you always want to keep in mind a certain kind of overarching question that you're really trying to understand from the particular person that you're interviewing. Interview protocols will start with an introduction where you describe what's the point of the interview as well as certain things that you respect about the interviewee. There'll also be a section in which you have a list of questions that you want to go through. Not necessarily in the exact order that you write out, but questions that will help guide you through the interview process. There will also be an observation section especially for user needs assessment where you'll want to observe how the user actually uses a product or might approach a product that they're not familiar with. Finally, there's a concluding section where you tell the interviewee what else you're going to do as follow-up and ask for any other additional responses that they might not have provided during the main interview itself. One last thing I'll mention is that you'll want to have a different set of protocols for each type of user or stakeholder that you'll be interviewing. So, for example, in the context of an airport screening, you'll have a different interview protocol for the people who are running the screening process, as well as for the customers, and possibly also for managers. Let me go over each of these sections one by one. One thing you want to do with every interview protocol is to have an overarching question in mind. This is the one big question that you're trying to answer and that you're hoping that through the interview, you'll get a little bit more insight on. This is something that you might not necessarily ask the interviewee directly, but you want to keep it in mind throughout the interview in your own role as the interviewer so that you're always making sure that the questions that you ask are relevant to the overarching question. The introduction is really the section where you start the interview process. For most interview participants, you'll need to do a self-introduction of who you are. I explain to them the goals of the interview and what you're there to discuss. Talk a little bit about the duration. You might let them know that the interview's going to take about an hour, and then also overview the different components of the interview. Finally, you want to talk about some things that have to do with interviewing ethics such as the fact that you'll maintain their confidentiality or not if the process requires that you not do that. Also, you want to make sure that interviewees understand that their participation is voluntary and that they might be able to quit at any point. Finally, you want to get permissions if this is necessary. In some cases, you'll want to ask for their release so that you can use the information that they provide. Also, in some cases, you might want to do an audio recording which is also very helpful and you need to get special permission to do that because at least in many countries, it is against the law to do audio recordings without explicit permission. Next, we go to the main interview. This is really the body of the interview protocol. You want to have basically a series of questions. Not all of which you'll ask in sequence, but which will help guide the interview and basically, provide a way in which you can think about how to go through the different components of the interview itself. It's useful to start with baseline or warm-up questions that are often short and simple. This helps gain momentum in the interview itself. It'll help the interviewee relax especially if they're questions that they can easily answer. Then, you'll get to the core questions, which are really the questions that you want to ask. These should always be in some way shape or form relevant to the overarching question. They'll often be open-ended which means that they encourage longer responses and you'll want to try to find a way to generate a conversational tone in the interview itself. This is a very tricky process and so there will be more details in the next video. Observation is that part of the interview in which you're actually going to be observing your interviewee as they go about either using a product or service. We like to use something that's called a think-aloud protocol in which participants actually verbally express what they're thinking or doing as they go about using the product or service. This seems a little bit awkward but it gets easier as time goes on. Now, you also want to have a series of questions that you might want to ask during observation. These are questions such as request to perform certain tasks, questions that you might be able to anticipate about what kind of challenges they might face during those tasks. Again, you want to focus on the overarching question. What is it that you really want to understand from the user as they use the product or service? Finally, your interview protocol should have a conclusion section. This is relatively straightforward. You will ask a few questions about whether they have anything else to add that wasn't covered in any of the questions that you asked. You definitely want to thank them. You also want to let them know about any follow-up plans. Usually, it is a courtesy to be able to suggest that if you have any other questions that you will contact them, and also that you'll report back with the overall results of the study that you're conducting. You want to provide your contact information. Ask again if they have any questions, and finally thank them one last time. One thing I'll mention about interview protocols is that there's really no hard rules to how you conduct an interview or even how you design the interview protocol itself. So, the kinds of comments that I'll be making in the next video and what you've already heard in this video are really just guidelines. The most important thing is to first of all ensure that you are not doing anything with interviewees that they wouldn't want for themselves. That means if they really want to keep their identity confidential that you should definitely respect that. If at any point, they want to stop the interview for whatever reason, you should also respect that as well. After the interview ethics issues, the most important thing of course is that you have the questions that you want answered. Have you gotten the responses that you want with respect to your overarching question? If not, what else do you really need to know? These are things to keep in mind throughout the interview process. Now, there are different variations to interview protocols. You might have multiple overarching questions. In some case, you might interleave the raw interviews with observations. In some cases, you might have no observations at all. That especially happens if there is no product or service yet that you're actually investigating and you're considering whether an interesting new product or service might be worthwhile. The other possibility is to do in-situ observation where you actually go to the site where people are using a product or service and watch how people use that product or service without actually asking them to do a think-aloud process. In any case, interview protocols are potentially quite complicated. So, in the next video, I'll provide some tips on how to design them.
