Best Practices

This can be done in a variety of ways including:

• A review of current events
• Visit local government websites to see what issues are being discussed
• Attend a city council meeting to get more ideas
• Talk to different people in the community to find out what problems they are facing every day and reflect
• Post problems on social media such as NextDoor or Facebook Group and ask for input. Read people’s posts to find out what issues are bothering them the most.
• Set up a brainstorming session with your friends/family to talk through everyone’s ideas.

Once you have identified an area of interest, you can explore this by accessing reliable sources of information such as:

• Online databases: Examples include JSTOR, Google Scholar, PubMed, EBSCO, and the local library.
• News websites and magazines such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Times Magazine, National Geographic, etc.
• Government and NGO reports: Examples include the World Health Organization and local government websites.
• Reach out to local government representatives to get more information on the topic.

• Collect relevant information related to the issue.
• Use both quantitative (e.g., statistics, numbers) and qualitative (e.g., interviews, observations) methods.
• Ensure that the data is accurate and up-to-date.

Interviewing Techniques

Why Interview Community Members?

• In order to have a successful project, your team must work to understand how community members are affected by the issue you have identified.
• “User interviews are a tool that can help you get this understanding. When an interview is conducted properly, it can give you an in-depth knowledge of your users – their goals, perceptions, and experience” (Babich, N. [2021, March 19], How to Conduct a User Interview That Actually Uncovers Valuable Insights, Shopify Partners, Web)

Preparing for an Interview

• Engage with your team to set a goal for your interviews
  • What information do you want to know from an interviewee?
  • How are we going to use the information in our process?
• Decide who to recruit to be interviewed.
  • Try to find individuals directly affected by the issue you have identified.
  • The group you select should be a representative cross-section of who you believe your target audience is.
  • Establish how many people will be interviewed for your project.
• Design interview questions.
  • Do not write down a list of questions beforehand that intentionally guide the interviewee in one direction.
  • Instead, have an outline of a conversation prepared. Have topics you need to cover, but leave things more open.
  • Listen carefully to the interviewee, and ask follow-up questions about what they said.
  • Questions are usually either general or design-specific.
    • Could you tell me which social media apps you use? (General)
    • How could using Instagram be made easier for you? (Specific)
• Other Helpful Tips
  • Keep your side of this conversation short. If it takes you a long time to read your outline or questions aloud, find ways to edit them down.
  • Compose clear questions and avoid long ones.
  • Do not ask two questions at once, doing so distracts an interviewee and they may not answer either completely.
  • Test your guide/questions on a peer outside of your team.
  • Iterate your discussion guide. Make changes when necessary!
  • Avoid leading questions.
    • A leading question is one where you prompt the participant to respond in a particular way, which can create bias in the answers given:
      • Leading Question: The economy is clearly in a crisis, wouldn’t you agree?
      • Revised Question: Do you believe the economy is currently in a crisis? Why or why not?
  • Where you conduct an interview is just as important as the questions. Make sure you’re in a comfortable space and don’t make your interviewee feel like they’re being interrogated.
  • Don’t conduct an interview alone. Interviewing with a partner means they may see or hear something that you missed.

Watch the helpful video below on how to conduct user interviews.

• Write a clear and concise problem statement.
• Avoid making assumptions or jumping to conclusions.
• A well-defined problem statement often starts with phrases like “How can we…?” or “In what ways might we…?”
• Teams can use several methodologies in writing the problem statement such as:
  • The L-MIT Methodology
    • Negative Consequence
    • Magnitude of Problem
    • Importance
    • Topic
  • Example: In our community, approximately 35% of residents (Magnitude) are not currently participating in recycling programs (Topic), leading to increased landfill use and environmental harm (Negative Consequence). Given the growing urgency to address environmental urgency to address environmentally sustainability (Importance), it is critical to investigate and address the barriers to recycling participation.

Building the Problem Statement around the following prompts:

• How did you identify this problem?
• Who are those affected by this problem?
• How often does this problem occur?
• How long has the problem been going on and why?
• How is the problem disrupting the community?
• Is the issue perceived as a problem by the community at large?
• Is the problem limited to certain geographic areas?
• Who are the stakeholders, those wanting this problem to be fixed?

• If the problem is complex, break it down into smaller, more manageable parts.
• Identify the root causes versus surface-level issues.
• Use tools like the 5 Whys to explore causes.

Synthesize Your Research

• Discuss the new information you gathered as part of your interview and research process as a team.
  • What should be changed? Why?
  • What assumptions and hypotheses will we use as we move forward in our project?
  • Are there other research techniques we can use shortly to provide additional valid qualitative or quantitative data? If so, where are they? What plans can we make to access them?
• Draft your new Problem Statement.

• Discuss the problem with others to gain different perspectives.
• Stakeholder feedback can provide invaluable insights.

• As you gather more information, revisit the problem statement to ensure it’s still accurate.
• Refine and adjust as needed based on new data or insights.