Article: Interview-Based Tasks: Learning from Leonardo DiCaprio
March 7th, 2006
UIEtips 3/7/06: Interview-Based Tasks: Learning from Leonardo DiCaprio
When we do our jobs well, important decisions are made correctly. Designs are improved. Experiences transition from frustrating to delightful. Assuming we do our jobs well.
Doing our jobs well is very hard work. A thousand details need to line up just perfectly. If we don’t get things just right, important decisions are made wrong. Designs regress. Experiences frustrate even more.
As user experience professionals, it’s all about the assumptions we make. If we assume correctly, things go well. It’s when we make false assumptions that problems occur. How do we know when our assumptions are any good?
In this week’s UIEtips, we address this question head-on by looking at a testing technique known as interview-based tasks. This non-traditional approach to usability tests helps work around the assumptions built into standard task design, allowing teams more flexibility and insight into what users actually need from the design.
Have you tried interview-based tasks? What insights did you gain from it? How else have you checked the assumptions that go into your work? Join the discussion by submitting a comment below.
Interview-based tasks are just one of the many techniques Christine Perfetti and I will be discussing as we unpack the usability toolbox at this year’s UIE Roadshow. We just had a sell-out show in Atlanta and people are still thinking about it. There’s a few seats left in the other five cities — if you’re thinking of coming, you’ll want to register right away. (And the prices go up today!) More details here.
Read the article here.
[p.s. Today's the last day to get great prices for the San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Washington DC Roadshow Events. Don't miss the opportunity. Information at the UIE 2006 Roadshow site.]
March 8th, 2006 at 6:44 am
It took a LONG time to get to the article on interview-based tasks. I kept taking the link that said, “Read the article here” thinking it would take me to the article on interview-based tasks (since that was the title of the page I was on and since that is what the discussion had been about up to that point. Instead, it took me to an article from 2001 about download times. Huh! go figure.
March 8th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Michael: Fixed. (It was a cut & paste problem.) Thanks for noticing it and letting us know.
March 8th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Hi, Jared!
Yes, when I was consulting last year with a well-known New York-based usability consultancy, we used this technique to great effect on e-commerce sites. I think it’s because everybody, more or less, has shopped at some point in their lives and relevant tasks aren’t too difficult to shape on the fly.
The real skill rests with a moderator who can ask the right questions during the interview and use that data to suggest the right tasks. You certainly get more natural behavior because the user is focusing on the things HE/SHE find relevant or important.
Downside is that it can be hard to shape those tasks; the technique may not work for more directed applications such as specialized software; it’s tough to assign statistical rigor; and it takes time to craft the tasks. You also run the risk of the user veering well away from the site or issue the client is interested in. In those cases, the art of “gentle steering without leading” comes into play.
Yell at me when you’re in Dallas next! Best regards to you & Christine.
March 13th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Dan Brown points us to this write up on a panel on this topic.