First Interviews

1. Where did you decide to conduct the interviews you did? Why did you choose that site?

2. How did you feel you did as an interviewer? Did the questions you ask provide you useful insight? Name one insight from the customer interviews that surprised you.

3. What was the best question you asked? Why? What was the most useless question you asked? Why? What is one new question that definitely should be asked in the next round of interviews?

4. What is more important: having good interview questions written down, having good people skills, or a lot more time to do the interviews? Explain. Which one of those is your weakest link? Which one is your strongest?

Clarence:

1. We decided to conduct the interviews around the school and around our neighborhoods. Conducting the interviews at these two different places will allow for us to get a wider range of people. This allowed us to collect information from different places. I interviewed some people in different states. I tried to collect as wide of a range of comments and answers to questions as possible. We also interviewed people at different ages since it allows us to get comments from different places and different ages. 

2. Being the one who interviewed people, I was able to gather information that we needed for our product. We asked specific questions about what features the interviewees wanted and then averaged it out. These questions allowed us to collect the information that we wanted. Some comments and answers to questions did change some thought, one example is that it is the older age people who wanted more simplicity. 

3. The best question(s) that we asked are the questions that allowed for us to determine what features our potential customers wanted. These potential customer questions allow us to determine what the majority of a specific amount of people want. A few of the worst questions are the one that were asking are the ones asking if people wanted a mirror on the back of their phone. In the next round of interviews we are planning to ask more intuitive questions like if they want a bundle or a accessories pack. 

4.  Having both good questions and good people skills allows you us to dive deeper into the comments and opinions made by possible customers. Because of the good questions, we can use that information better than bad questions. The Good people skills parts allows us to connect with our potential customers and make sure that they are interested in our product. It turns out, if one person likes an idea, he/she will indeed spread that idea to other people. And that is how we should do this. Our questions are the problem, although with good people skills, our questions did not provide us with much useful information at first. After a few revisions, we were up and running once again. Collecting as much information as we can so we can start designing. 

Akhil:

1. We decided to conduct our first interviews throughout our neighborhood, through text, or in school. Since we were mainly trying to find the basic information, we used our closest resources, but tried to keep the age groups different. The reason we asked different age groups was because we wanted to first get a feel of who we were selling to, and pick different features based on different age groups, maybe even selling different packages. I asked people in my debate class because I thought they could give me thorough responses that help provide information on their preferences.

2. As an interviewer, I felt like I had an easy job, except for the fact that I had to sometimes repeat the questions and guide them through what the questions meant. I tried to make sure that I didn't tell them a certain fact or problem that made them answer a certain way to the questions. I do think that the questions were mostly to the point and insightful, since we got the necessary information for which features were most preferred. One insight that surprised me was the fact that one person said that we should make different packages to sell to customers, rather than selling just one product that works for most customers but not all.

3. The best question I asked was probably one of the yes/no questions, due to the fact that we needed to be able to rule out the features that the majority said no too. We would make sure we add the features that most people said yes too, and we could think of different ideas for the features that have a 50/50 split. The most useless question I asked was probably how much we should invest in the product. That is because the people, unless they know business, won't likely be able to give us great insight on how much money we need to put in. We should definitely ask our interviewees questions about their specific preferences, or if they have problems with certain features in their phone.

4. Good people skills is probably just as important as having good interview questions to ask because you need to make sure that the questions you are asking are clear and meaningful, and you are able to help them understand what your product is about, what your solution is, and you are able to highlight the problems to the interviewees. More time to do the interviews isn't really an essential piece, at least for me, because the current time is enough. Our weakest of those is probably having good interview questions written down, or, as an extra one, finding the right people to interview. Our strongest is likely good people skills.

Michelle:

1. I conducted most of my interviews at school, because I thought that many students my age would be excited about our product. A lot of teenagers are very attached to their phones, and would love a multifunctional case, which is why the people I interviewed were mostly students at miller. I also conducted part of my interviews at home, because I also wanted some adult feedback and opinions. In general I think that all ages would be interested in our product, so anywhere would be a good place to interview.

2. As an interviewer, I felt like I was getting the information I needed, although some of the people I tried to interview weren't being serious, or paying attention to my questions. The questions I asked were a little bit indirect, but regardless, I still did get some good opinions and feedback. I put a lot of 'yes' or 'no' questions that were a bit of a beginners mistake, but after changing them, I got a lot more information.

3. The best question I asked was: "What age group do you think would be interested in buying our product? Name a range.". This was an important question because if we don't know which customers were targeting, then we can't really make our product. I already have an idea of who I'm trying to target as customers (12-60 year olds), but what others think of the age range is useful. They seem to be around the same range as me, which is helpful.

4. I think having good interview questions written down is the most important because even if you have the time, but bad questions, you won't get anything good out of them. Having good questions is crucial because you're not making the product for customers, not for yourself. My weakest link is having good interview questions, and my strongest is having good people skills. I have changed my questions, and they have improved, but I think that I could do a lot better.