Interview Discussion Guide
Interview Discussion Guide
Purpose of the Interview Guide
This interview guide was designed to help me and my team gain an in-depth understanding of how our users might use our product. The data from these interviews provided insights that helped us design a product that alleviated user pain points and encouraged user retention.
Interview Guide
Introduction
10 MINUTES
The following is a guide that is meant to be flexible to the needs of the conversation. Not all questions will be used; however, we recommend focusing on the main questions. Use the secondary questions/drill-down questions if needed.
Hi. My name is [interviewer’s name] and I am [credientals] at [company name].
Thank you so much for being here. Before we get started, I want to let you know why we are doing this and what we will be doing with the information you share today:
As we look to develop a holistic strategy for reporting non-emergency requests to city municipalities, we want to first observe, listen and gather insights from citizens like yourself. The goal of the interview is to gain a deeper understanding of your experiences with past and current reporting efforts so that we can better plan for the future. Comments shared by you and other participants will be combined and paraphrased to share the themes that are raised.
I also want to assure you that this interview is completely confidential, and your name will not be associated with anything you say as we share our findings with leadership. We will be talking to 10 or so other citizens this week, and we want those conversations to be engaging and uninterrupted by note-taking-so, we will record audio of our interview and convert the audio to transcripts just to ensure we accurately capture all of your feedback. These recordings will be used for that purpose only. We will delete your recording once we have finished transcribing. You’ll naturally use names and departments to tell me stories and details, but our research will focus more on themes and patterns. Comments shared by you and other participants will be combined and paraphrased to share the themes that are raised. Do we have your permission to record?
Any questions or concerns?
Ok. One last thing before we get started: there are no right answers; it’s important for us to hear both sides – both positives and negatives so please share honestly. We have some specific topics we would like to touch-on today, but we want to hear about your experience and your needs. My overall request is that when you are telling me about an experience you’ve had, you go into as much detail as possible around how you felt, what you thought, what you did, and even what you wished could be different – sounds ok?
Great. If it’s alright with you, I’m going to start recording now.
Questions
70 MINUTES
Pre-start
10 MINUTES
- What’s your name and age?
- What do you do for a living?
- Do you use a computer for your job?
- Where do you live?
- Do you rent or own?
- Are you a resident of the city, or are you just visiting?
- How often do you use your phone?
Organizational
30 MINUTES
The purpose of these questions is to explore participants’ perspectives on the current attitude of government response to citizen engagement by reporting issues to the city. It focuses on the organization and helps us to understand what is going well, where we can improve, and how we should focus in the future.
- How often do you report issues to your municipality?
- In what ways have you contacted the city to report non-critical issues?
- How responsive do you feel your city is at responding to complaints and non-critical issues that are reported by citizens?
- How does your city advertise how to report these types of issues?
- If the participant isn’t aware of ways to report issues: What is your preferred method to the city alerting you of new tools available to report these issues?
- How can your city become more effective at handling these types of issues?
Individual Experience
30 MINUTES
These questions get to the heart of the matter and explore how the current state is impacting citizens. It explores motivations and attitudes of participants that would be candidates to use the 311 app through the citizen’s experiences and feelings.
Deciding to file a complaint
- Think about a time you noticed something that needed attention either in your community or housing. How would you go about alerting city officials to the matter?
- Think about a time that you were visiting a city and noticed an issue that could use attention. Were you inclined to report it?
- Did you? Why or why not?
- Did you know who to contact?
- If the answer is no, how did you find out?
- What complaints have you filed with the city?
- What is the reasoning for filing a complaint
- When you have an issue or complaint to file do you do it right away or wait?
- What kind of incident or complaint would make you file a complaint immediately?
- Did you have the tools to file a complaint right away?
Process of filing a complaint
- Describe how you would file a complaint with the city?
- How long does this task take?
- Where would you start?
- What would you do next?
- Can you show me how you do that?
- What type of evidence do you use to support/submit a complaint?
- What kind of documentation did you gather?
Resolution/Non-resolution to filed complaint
- What has your experience been after you’ve filed a complaint?
- What has your experience been during the process of filing a complaint?
- Do you expect follow-ups?
- What is your preferred method of communication
Tools & Technology
- How would you want to file complaints?
- How do you feel about filling out forms on your phone?
- What digital tools do you use to complete these types of tasks?
- Why?
- What tools or resources would get you to report issues faster and more regularly?
- What about these tools makes it more inviting to do so?
Wrapping Up
- Have we missed anything?
- Is there anything you want to tell us?
- Is there anything you want to ask?
- Are you interested in follow-up surveys?
I’m going to stop the recording now.
Closing
5 MINUTES
Thank you for taking the time to meet today and share your experiences. As we mentioned, your feedback is informing a larger effort to enhance reporting methods for non-emergency requests to city municipalities.
The next step in this process is continuing these interviews – we will aggregate what we’ve heard, keeping all insights anonymous, and define the key themes and ways to evolve the 311 application.
Need more detail?
Project Background & Objectives
311* service-request systems represent one of the most significant links between residents and their city government. These systems receive millions of non-emergency requests annually. With rising numbers of users, positive customer experiences are more difficult to sustain and have, in fact, often been found to be lacking as user needs continue to evolve.
Many cities have created 311 systems that provide the public with quick and easy access to a centralized platform for government services and information. Each day, cities receive thousands of requests related to several hundred types of non-emergency services, including noise complaints, plumbing issues, and illegally parked cars. These requests are received by the 311 employees and forwarded to the relevant government agencies such as the police, buildings, or transportation. The expectation (intended experience) is for the agency to respond to the request, address it, and then close it while keeping the reporter (resident user) updated throughout the process.
311 service request systems represent one of the most significant links between citizens and city government. These systems receive millions of non-emergency requests annually. With rising numbers of users, positive customer experiences are more difficult to sustain and have, in fact, often been found to be lacking as user needs continue to evolve.
Our research objective was to ensure that 311 apps address current issues, consistently provide excellent customer service, and raise awareness and app downloads among non-users. The 311 apps should be the one-stop for all non-emergency service and information requests between residents and their municipalities.
This study's output was used to inform our recommendations of specific interface improvements that can be made to increase user engagement and better provide a seamless experience from reported issue opening to closing.
*All cities independently name this non-emergency request system (eg, Ann Arbor, MI, See Click Fix; Chicago, IL, CHI 311; San Francisco, CA, SF311; New York, NY, NYC 311). For the purposes of this report, we will broadly refer to all of these apps as “311.”