Interviews: To prep or not to prep

[I apologize for the tardiness of the post.]

One of my struggles during this final project was preparing for interviews. I felt that the more questions I came up with, the better the interview went. (Granted, this is only based on around 10 interviews.) This simply could be that I devoted more time and thought to those particular interviews, or it could be that those people just liked to talk more.

Bulk questions is probably not the best way to go. I know it is a good rule of thumb to identify a small set of questions that need to be answered and then make the interview more of a conversation. This means really listening to what the interviewee is saying and asking questions based on their responses rather than simply reading down a list. This requires more thinking on the spot, and it probably helps to have a fuller picture of the story in your head. I think that can be hard sometimes. I did not know where exactly the story was going to go, or maybe I just did not know where it could go.

I wanted to ask the questions that no one was asking so I could write about what no one was writing about. It turns out that is harder than one might think.