Conclusion-From my interview experience
- Don’t follow questions list so strictly.
Having researched the interviewees’ online work, I created related questions that make sure the interviews more fluent and familiar with my interviewee quickly. First I interviewed a sculpture artist. who unfortunately offered only rigid and somewhat dull responses to my prepared questions. I coudn’t find any fun in our conversation, decided that interview was unsuccessful, and even wondered wether the boring answers due to boring questions. Because I followed the list so closely, afraid of silent gaps in conversation, we weren’t able to enjoy the fun parts of interview. Following the list was mechanical and boring. In the future, I will only rely on question list in the beginning, using it as an outline rather than a strict format.
2. Don’t treat the interview like a interview.
The interview topic of my plan is about traditional culture innovation. Interviewees are designers and artists. The interview goal is accept their concept and thinking base on their artwork. So the interview should be a conversation instead of regular interview. I can give them some triggers to talk traditional culture and related opinions instead of questions. After I treated my interview as a friends’ conversation, the whole process of interview became more fun and relax.
3. Lead the conversation inconspicuously.
In my interview, The hardest part is balance of leading the conversation. People always want to dominate talk topic. Especially when you talk with someone who have their own philosophy and creative ideas strongly. So how sholud I deal with the balance conversation between my interviewees and me. Because interview is about my topic which I should dominate. On the other side, I really care about interviewees’ opinions and concepts. So I don’t want to make the conversation follow my stream too strictly to talk . Because in this way, I cannot listen to different and surprised opinions from my interviewees. What I did in my third interview is lead the conversation inconspicuously. I made the topic come back to my main stream, when the artist said too much about fashion and clothes style. But sometimes, I set my ideas away from the conversation, and let my interviewees to lead the conversation, when she talk about the political of traditional korean culture. And I got the super big topic and discovery from her topic.
4. Record your interview process carefully.
I only recorded voice at first interview. The record lasts forty minutes. It is too long to recap the key points when I wrote my interview article. So I used video and notes at my second interview. This is super helpful. Because I can followed my notes to find the key points in conversation easily, the video also gave me more indicator of interviewee’s reaction which make me understand their words deeply.