Métodos
Phone Interview
Hechos:
- Also called: Phone Questionnaire, Phone Survey
- Lifecycle stages: All
A semi-structured or structured interview that is conducted over a phone or Internet audio line. Phone interviews can supplement other HCI methods and allow HCI specialists to follow users over an extended time.
- Descripción Básica
- Cómo
- Consideraciones especiales
Outcomes and Deliverables
The deliverables for a phone interview would be:
- A list of the people contacted and their backgrounds for a profile of your sample.
- A transcript or notes of the interview.
- A summary of the quantitative data from rating, ranking, or other closed-ended questions.
- Context of use information ( task , environment, and constraints).
- A list of common themes, patterns, or trends from open-ended questions.
Benefits, Advantages and Disadvantages
Benefits
The phone interview is a benefit for management and HCI personnel since it reduces travel costs while permitting interaction with remote participants. With the advances in remote conference tools the interviewer has the possibility of observing what the participants are doing with software. Phone interviews can supplement site visits, face-to-face interviews, and other methods. For example, after a site visit or a survey you could gather additional data by conducting a phone interview.
Advantages
- Phone interviews are relatively inexpensive.
- Phone interviews can have a shorter data collection period than face-to-face interviews.
- Phone interviews may have a better response rate than mail surveys.
Disadvantages
- Phone interviews can be quite tiring, so they are often shorter than face-to-face interviews.
- Phone interviews can be difficult if the interviewer or interviewee has a strong accent.
- Phone interviews are not as good as face-to-face interviews when you are dealing with complex issues.
- If you have multiple interviewers, you have to worry about consistent approaches to the interviews and group training.
- Phone interviews are not as anonymous as online surveys.
- Phone interviews are often conducted at times that are convenient to the participant, but not for the interviewer (evenings, early mornings, weekends)
- Phone interviews at a person’s office or home can involve many potential distractions like colleagues stopping by, calls on other lines, background noise, and the lure of using the computer to work during the phone interview.
Read More About It
Authoritative References
Dillman, D. (1978). Mail and Phone surveys: The total design method. New York, NY: Wiley.
Published Studies
Ratner, J. (2003). Learning about the user experience on the Web with the phone usability method. In J. Ratner (Ed.) Human factors in web development. Mahwah: NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum. (pp. 123-146).
Robson, C. (2002). Real world research (Second Edition) . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Shuy. R. W. (2001). In-person versus phone interviewing. In J. F. Bugrium & H. A. Holstein (Eds.). Handbook of Interview Research: Context & Method. Thousand Oaks: CA: Sage Publications. (pp. 537-555).
Related Subjects
- Face-to-face interview: A phone interview is an alternative to a face-to-face interview and is used when costs, distance, or circumstances of the work or environment preclude talking directly with the participant. Phone interviews can complement or supplement other types of interviews or HCI methods.
- Remote usability testing: Remote usability testing often involves a combination of thinking aloud and phone interviews.