I'm part of an external team hired to improve a software engineering company's intranet.
I have been tasked with developing a usable set of personas out of a pool of around 300 employees. The personas, along with heuristic evaluation and usability testing, will be one of the tools used to develop a design-decision making framework.
In order for the personas to be an effective tool I know I need to ask the right questions, the right way. Does anyone have some experience interviewing intranet users that they can share?
Answer
The less questions you ask, the better.
For personas development one should use interviews of the *ethnographic * kind (Google for it).
In these interviews the subject is encouraged to talk freely, unconstrained. This is the best way to detect their cravings and frustrations. On the other hand, a set of preset questions implies a frame in the interviewer's mind that suggests a pre-existing design.
It is practical to divide the session in two stages.
In the first stage you want the subject to expose her ideas.
The second stage should be about her experiences and feelings.
To start the first stage, and after you have built some confidence and set the background, you ask something generic like what do you think about ?.
To switch to the second stage the question should be in the vein of how do you feel about , do you have any prior experiences?.
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