This weeks assignment was to conduct a structured interview with my partner Cecile. The objective is to determine (1) Cecile’s research interests (2) how she thinks project groups should be determined.
The process to accomplishing this is as follows:
Determine Questions -> Conduct Interview -> Synthesize Results
Determine Questions
Cecile and I worked together over Zoom to agree to a final set of questions that each would ask the other. Our question finalization largely consisted of consolidating questions we felt were redundant with others or unnecessary to accomplish the assignment objective. For some questions we use ‘why’ as a prompt to direct questions in order to facilitate further conversation around that topic.
Our final questions are below, grouped by the objective and overall theme:
(1) Research interests
- Tell me about your professional, academic and or practice background?
- Recent projects you have been inspired with/ precedents?
- What are your reading interests?
- Why do you want to know more about that topic?
(2) Determining Groups
General
- Tell me about your past experiences working in a group?
2. What are some challenges you’ve faced working in a group?
3. While working in a group, what do you think is more important the skills or the interest for a topic? Why?
Structure / working style
- What size of teams do you prefer working in (number of people)? Why?
2. Asynchronous or synchronous coordination?
Role / Background
- Do you prefer defined or undefined group roles?
2. What type of role do you want to explore in a group? Why?
3. What type of skills do you look for in your group partners? Why?
4. What type of personalities do you like to work with? Why?
Conduct Interview
Included here are my notes to Cecile’s responses. Given the breadth of our interview, a number of follow-up questions and prompts are alluded to but not explicitly documented.
Synthesize Results
To better organize the findings from the interview I’ve grouped Cecile’s responses in two ways:
Affinity Cluster
Empathy Map
The empathy map captures Cecile’s quotes (Says), potential thoughts (Thinks), emotional state (Feels), and actions (Does). While not comprehensive or perfectly categorized it gives a sense of possible understanding for motivation in a group setting.
Summary
Cecile enjoys group work when the process is democratic and everyone participates, a process she believes is generally easier in smaller groups. In this course she’d like to take on more of a design-centered role but brings relevant professional experience facilitating group projects.
Topics of interest include user-experience in physical spaces (particularly in a post-COVID world), human psychology and neuroscience to understand attracting attention through emotion, and the impact of humans on the environment.
