After introductions, check that your participant has completed the consent form if you’re using one. If they haven’t, you can ask them to complete it there and then.

Make sure the interviewee is comfortable. Let them know that:

• this is a safe space for them to discuss topics without judgement
• you are interested in hearing their perspective even if it is negative
• they don’t have to answer a question if they don’t want to
• they can take a break if needed
• they are free to stop the interview any time without giving you a reason
• they can withdraw consent later if they change their minds (up to the point anything is published, or merged with other information and can no longer be pulled out)

Accessibility

You must make sure your interviews are accessible for your interviewees. This can mean making accommodations for someone’s needs. See our guidelines on running accessible sessions for tips on making sure nobody is excluded.

Using your discussion guide

You don’t have to stick rigidly to your discussion guide. It is a guide. Listen and ask follow-up questions. Feel free to jump forward to other questions if they come up naturally. The conversation should feel natural.

If you notice the interviewee going off on an irrelevant tangent, wait for a suitable time to interrupt them, and move onto a new question. ‘I’m just keeping an eye on the clock, and I’d like to move on to…’ is always a handy excuse.

Don’t share your opinion or judgement, you don’t want to bias your research. Silence is okay. The less you say the more the participant will want to fill the space.

If you have a note taker, allow them some time at the end to ask follow-up questions of their own.

Finish up with something that signals you are at the end of the questions you intended to ask. ‘That’s everything from us, is there anything you think we should’ve asked you?’

Explain what will happen next and if you plan to follow up with them, set some expectations of when and why.

Taking notes

There are numerous ways to take notes. Verbatim, or smart-verbatim notes are best because you are recording everything that is said, in the way that it was said.

This:

• reduces the chance of misunderstandings
• makes sure you have captured all the information
• lets you quote people directly later

People can speak quickly, making it hard to get everything down. This is why recording can be useful to refer back to and fill in any gaps. If you miss something the interviewee says, note down the time, so you can easily find the right spot in the recording.

Taking notes and recording the conversation can be trickier if you are interviewing in person rather than online. Focus on capturing specific data, and if you can’t capture verbatim notes, try to get the overall sentiment of each answer.

If you are interviewing multiple people (either in a group session, or in multiple one-to-one interviews), you can use thematic analysis to see what findings are similar across your range of participants.