Hey Josh! A few things to clarify — there are interviews and workshops with research participants and then workshops with client/internal stakeholders. The experiences I drew from when writing this post are from when I was a consultant, so the research immersion was a workshop I was putting on for my client and any other key stakeholders. I imagine this would be a bit different than being in-house and doing a session with a product team.
My comment about the worksheet being useful even if it’s not totally filled out is related to using worksheets as stimulus in a 1:1 user interview. Since you have only one person you’re focused on, even if they didn’t capture their thoughts for you on the worksheet, the notetaker in the interview will be able to catch it.
If I am in a group situation like a workshop, a few things I can do to make documenting easier when there are multiple people talking:
- Make participants write out/capture their thoughts themselves on worksheets, post-its, etc. (In a workshop setting, it’s easier to prod people to fill out their own sheets than in a 1:1 interview.)
- Have an extra person in the room whose job is to be the notetaker
- Sometimes I’ll arrange my workshop so that when we are doing discussion it’s only one person talking at a time — to make it easier for the note taker.
To your question about distilling 4 hours of conversation into something that’s digestible — again, it’s a bit different because I was writing about a session with client, not users. In these instances, I would argue that anyone from client who wants to have input on the project really just actually has to be there since it will be lost on them if we try to make everything digestible in a PPT or report. The point of the research immersion workshop is to immerse clients who are detached from their users in footage of their users speaking raw and candid.
I just started an in-house gig and am working more explicitly in tech with product teams, etc. so we’ll see how my practice adapts accordingly! Hope this clarifies a little.
