I privilege observing and participating over asking and telling. A successful field visit is one in which, at the end, the participant feels like they’ve made a new friend rather than like they’ve just been interviewed.

The general flow of most interview guides is:

but I approach the interviews with a sense of what I can only call a bland curiosity.

people find the pain of the problem to be less annoying than the effort to solve it.

What you’re learning is not an evaluation of the concept, but instead a deeper understanding of the design criteria for a future solution. Although concepts are the stimuli, you deliberately choose stimuli that contain some aspect of your hypotheses, ideas, or questions in a tangible form.

You should ask the stakeholders

The goal here is to make it clear to the participant (and to yourself) that they are the expert and you are the novice. This definitely pays off. When I conduct research overseas, people tangibly extend themselves to answer my necessarily naïve questions. Although it’s most apparent in those extreme situations, it applies to all interviews. Respect

Let the participant know what to expect by giving a thumbnail outline of the process: “We’ll take about 90 minutes with you.

The questions you ask are signifiers that you are listening. Try to construct each question as a follow-up to a previous answer.