Ways of Collecting Information

• Interviews

• Questionnaires

• Ethnography

• Joint Application Design

• Books and leaflets in the organization

• Prototypes

Interviews

• Interview Purpose

• Interview Planning

• Interview Time

• Interview Recording

• After the interview

Interview

• Types of information gathered by interview– Opinion: (what is the problem?)– Feelings: (employees attitude, culture)– Goals: (organization goals)– Informal procedures: (how work is actually

done?)

Interview Planning

• Read background material• Establish interview objectives• Decide who to interview• Prepare the interviewee

– Make appointment– How long (maximum 45 minutes)– What is the objective of the interview

• Write questions and check the structure

Types of Questions

• Open-ended Questions– Give the user the freedom to answer in any length

• Closed Questions– The answer is always finite (bipolar questions)

• Probe (follow-up) Questions– A sign of listening (ask for clarifications)

Open-ended Questions

• Put the interviewee at ease

• Pick up vocabulary

• Get details

• Suggest other questions

• More interesting for interviewee

• Easier for interviewer

• Lose control of interview

• Take a lot of time

• Interviewer is not ready

• No clear objective

• Difficult to analyze

Closed Questions

• Save time

• Easy to analyze

• Keep control of interview

• Cover lots of ground

• Get to the point

• Boring for interviewee

• Can’t get details and miss useful information

• No emotional contact

DON’T

• Avoid leading questions– You will get biased answers

• Avoid double-barreled questions– They can answer one and forget the other– Hard to distinguish which answer is which

Organizing Interviews

• Pyramid (Inductive)– Start with detailed and closed questions, then

open questions

• Funnel (deductive)– Start with open-ended questions then closed

• Diamond– Start with specific closed questions, then general

open questions then conclude with closed

• No order

Pyramid Interview

Funnel Interview

Diamond Interview

Organizing Interviews

• Pyramid: – Used with someone who doesn’t want to speak– Needs introduction to the subject

• Funnel– Get all the details quickly– Give freedom to speaker

• Diamond:– Takes longer– Keep the speaker interested

Organizing Interviews

• Structured Interview are easier to analyze

• Interviewer has more control

• Needs less training

• Unstructured interviews are more flexible

Interview Time• Be on time

• Introduce yourself

• Say the purpose of the interview

• Explain the recording technique

• Pick up special vocabulary

• Listen to redirect your questions accordingly

• Control the length of the answers

• Rephrase to make sure you understood correctly

• Last question: Anything to add?

• Summarize and tell him what is next.

Recording the Interview

• Audio: (Take permission and tell the interviewee how it will be used)

– Advantages:• Full accurate record of interview• Better eye contact

– Disadvantages• Interviewee may be nervous

• Note Taking– Advantages:

• Could be the only way to record• Keep the interviewer alert

Interview Report• Write it as soon as possible • Captures the important points in Interview

Joint Application Design (JAD)

• Alternative to personal interview

• Used for requirement analysis and user interface design

• Includes users, analysts and mangers

• Meet for 2-4 days outside offices

• Define the objectives of the sessions

• Brainstorming

JAD• Includes:

– Session leader– Session recorder– Session observer (advisor)

• Give participants papers about the workshop days before it for preparation

• Analyst doesn’t ask, but acts as an expert

• Requires certain room facilities (e.g. presentation equipments)

JAD Personnel

JAD involves:– Analysts– Users– Executives– Observers– Scribe– Session leader

JAD

• Advantages:– Save time– Users can interact with analysis process– Creativity (different people looking for solution)

• Disadvantages:– Requires commitment of time from people– Requires certain organization structure

Questionnaires

• An information gathering technique which can be used to collect:– Beliefs: what is right or wrong?– Attitude: what they want?– Behavior: what do they do?– Characteristics of users

Questionnaires• Used before interviews to sense where the

problem is

• Used after interviews to quantify results from interviews

• Used if you want to find the percentage of people who support/disagree with something

• Used to gather massive data about problem

• Used if the users are distributed

Preparation of Questionnaire

• Identify the objective of questionnaire– Decide who gets the questionnaire (sampling)

• Prepare the questionnaire

• Write the questionnaire

• Administer the data

Questionnaires

• Questionnaires are more difficult:– The analyst is not their to clarify things and follow

up

• So…– Questions should be clear and short– Use familiar vocabulary for respondent– Order the questions logically– Anticipate the respondent answer to plan the

administration process

Questions Types• Open Questions:

– Should be narrow enough to anticipate answer– Difficult to administer (analyze and interpret)– Easy to prepare

• Closed Questions:– Put all the options of an answer– Sometimes mutually exclusive– Easy to administer (Quantified)

Scaling

• Assigning numbers or symbols to measure some attitude

– Feelings: (hate, like, not bothered, like a lot)– Belief: (agree, disagree, disagree strongly, don’t

care)

Forms of Measurement

• Nominal: options are classifications

• Ordinal: options are ordered classification but the difference between them are not specified

• Interval: difference between options are equal

• Ratio: represents real measurements (have absolute zero)

After Preparing the Questionnaire

• Ask yourself, is the questionnaire:– Valid?

• Is it measuring what you want to measure?

– Reliable?• Does it provide consistent answers?

• External Reliability: on different settings (same conditions)

• Internal Reliability: within the same setting, but questions asked in different ways

Problems with Scales

• Leniency:

– Rate everything to be good

• Central tendency:

– Rate everything as average

• Halo problem:

– Impression from one question carries to another

Solving the central problem• Create a scale with more points (e.g. 5 instead of 3)

• Make differences between the 2 ends small

• Change the strength of the description words

Solution

Questionnaire Format• Allow white space• Allow space to answer• Tell the respondent what to do• Consistency in style (color, font, positions of items,

sectioning)• Order of questions• Cluster related questions• Put important questions to the respondent first• Delay questions that are controversial

Administration• Gather all the respondents and do one setting

• Personally hand out questionnaires and collect them

• Respond is responsible for collecting, filling and returning the questionnaire

• Use mail to send and receive questionnaire

• Distribute it electronically (web site, email)

Sampling

• Sampling is a process of systematically selecting representative elements of a population.•Which of the key documents and Web

sites should be sampled.

•Which people should be interviewed or sent questionnaires.

Sampling Design Steps

To design a good sample, a systems analyst needs to follow four steps:– Determining the data to be collected or described.

– Determining the population to be sampled.

– Choosing the type of sample( random, based on criteria)

– Deciding on the sample size (based on cost and time)

Obtaining Hard Data

Hard data can be obtained by:– Analyzing quantitative documents such as

records used for decision making.– Performance reports.– Records.– Collect blank forms– Ecommerce and other transactions.

Quantitative Documents

• Collect blank forms and notice their:– type– Distribution method– Who receive them

Analyzing Qualitative Documents

Qualitative documents include:– Memos.– Bulletin boards– Organization Web sites.– Manuals.– Policy handbooks.

Observation

• Observation provides insight on what organizational members actually do.

• See firsthand the relationships that exist between decision makers and other organizational members.– Behavior– Activities– Environment

STROBE

STRuctured OBservation of the Environment-- a technique for observing the decision maker's environment– Office location (shows interactions and flow of

info.)– Storage of data– Use of computer equipments– External information sources.– Organization and neatness