Flexibility meets reliability.

The dilemmas we face when running interviews in the field.

One of the biggest questions we face in the field pertains to bias. In every interview we construct, we — design researchers- strive for consistency. If the conditions of the experiment are identical, the results will be void of bias.

Or so the narrative goes.

In reality, bias exists under many forms. It may be introduced by the interviewer, which is what we seek to minimize through replicable protocols. It exists, too, in interviewees. We often correct for this type of bias by focusing on non-response rates, underlying characteristics of interviewees, and social desirability.

Here’s one element, however, you will never be able to control.

The diversity of human nature.

In fact, if your recruitment is effective, your interviewees could potentially greatly differ from one another. And so does their preferred method of expression, storytelling, engagement.

This is where being fluent in several methods- and their possible interaction — comes in handy.

On a recent client project, one of the interviewees spontaneously shifted from the traditional interview style to a contextual inquiry style. Without prompting, he proceeded to enrich the interview by showing me…