QRCA Views

46 QRCA VIEWS WINTER 2 014 www.qrca.org • Know your anticipated study outcomes and the reasons for those assumptions. This makes it easier to be flexible with changing conditions and a varied available population. • Be ready with any appropriate, quick, and friendly question. You have to be "on" and energized without being freaky. • Use your own style. • Cast your question in a culturally acceptable way. Be sensitive to and respectful of ethnic customs and protocol. • Be inquisitive rather than confrontational. • Work the researcher angle. People want to help you if they can. Not everyone wants to help you, though, and some folks just won't talk to strangers. And of course, hardly anyone qualifies for your study when you're out in a random pool. For our most recent study, we con- ducted 55 twenty-minute interviews during a three-week period in which we did one or two days of intercepts in each of four cities. There were days when we stood (or paced) for three or four hours and managed to do only a couple of interviews each. • Give yourself plenty of time. • Consider setting goals for the day as motivation. • Don't expect everyone you approach to say "yes." Location, Location, Location One of the biggest challenges was choosing where to try to intercept people. We wanted people who didn't vote or voted infrequently. Fortunately, they're everywhere. But we were pretty sure that there were places where prospective voters were more likely and less likely to be. We looked for cities with diverse neigh- borhoods. The next trick was to find the right place within the neighborhood to do our epic hanging around. You want a place where there is plenty of foot traffic, but not where people are on their way somewhere. Train stations, maybe. Subway stops, not so much. Our greatest success was at a community center one evening. There were a lot of people coming and going for events, but there were also people just hanging out who had time to spend with us and were glad to do it. We had called ahead to ask if it would be permissible for us to be there, if we needed to rent a room, and whether there were any rules we needed to know. When we arrived, the director was delighted to see us, made introductions, and gave us a tour. There were also a couple of places where we had handlers or intermediaries. In one neighborhood, a community activist took us around to some of the spaces where she regularly worked with people or groups. We had general success at or near libraries. A large city library had a lot of foot traffic from the neighboring univer- sity, as well as other people from the community. This population mix yielded several qualified candidates for our study. • Cafés and restaurants will be more welcoming, especially if you offer to buy something for you and your participants, or if you know the proprietor. • Intercepting inside a library is not feasible since the venue is too far away from foot traffic. • What you are doing may be seen as soliciting, which is illegal in some situations. Be sure to check local regulations so as not to violate any laws. • Colleges may want you to go through their institutional review board (IRB), unless you know the provost or president who can grant approval. • Community centers can be safe, fun, target-rich environments with a little advance planning. Safety and Approachability This brings us to safety and awareness of your surroundings. We did all of our street intercepts during daylight hours. We conducted separate interviews, but we were usually within viewing range of each other, and when we weren't, we either checked in first or SMS'd new locations (I would never try this kind of fieldwork without a cell phone handy). When we did intercept interviews in the evening we chose indoor locations, such as the community center. • Work in pairs. • When working outside, work during daylight hours, unless you know the neighborhood to be safe. • If you decide to separate, agree on a meeting time and place to check in. • Make sure your cell phone is fully charged. • Have a plan for emergencies. There are people in the general public who would be perfect for your study, but when you see them, they actively avoid you. They turn away, cross the street, or just look down. It is fascinating to be deliberately ignored. When that happened a lot, I took at as a signal that I needed to check myself. What was my posture like? How was I holding myself? Was the sign for my study showing and readable? Was I showing any signal that I should not be approached? Potential interview subjects will be more receptive to someone who devotes attention to their personal appearance and demeanor. Recruiting well for user research is one of the greatest challenges of day-to-day work in experience design. Focusing on behavior makes it easier. How do you find people who are hard to find through the usual channels? We decided to go where our peo- ple were: streets, libraries, community cen- ters, churches, malls. Sure enough, there they were. All we had to do was talk to enough strangers. PRO TIPS Recruiting for Qualitative Research C O N T I N U E D How to communicate Reaching your quota Choosing a venue Guarding your personal safety PRO TIPS PRO TIPS PRO TIPS

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