How to Interp: A Guide to Contextual Data Minning

I have just returned from flying around the country and gathering contextual data a’plenty. After experiencing most, if not all, the earlier mentioned interview issues, I am now moving into the “Interp” phase of the contextual design process. This is when you sit in a room with your team members and go through the interview. With painstaking detail you reenact the interview to ensure all data has been sucked out, leaving nothing but worthless scribbles on paper, drained dry warped and brittle, never to be touched again…

So get your party pants on its Interp’in time!

There is no real science to interpreting the interview. Review the tape if you got one, but other then that there is no secret sauces that makes it happen. Everyone has a role and when they play their part the audience will not be disappointed. The interviewer recreates the story with their notes and the modelers document that story as best they can. No need to argue for any reason, write it all down. This is the one team activity were everybody should be happy in the end. Not only is it possible, it’s predictable.

Few minor tidbits, however, to keep in mind when interpreting. Try not to digress; it’s going to take awhile and why start the project off with late nights? Note format; DI & Qs only, everything else is an insight. Check your verbiage; it’s pretty important in the end, trust me. Don’t lose the point; its all these notes have so make sure they have it. Read the notes; you took them for a reason and this is the reason. Drop the word NO from your vocabulary; this is the trust bubble, anything can be said without fear of ridicule.

There are multiple points of view to everything. Bare that in mind when working closely with other team members and you’ll have few bumps along the road of good interp’in.