What makes for a successful pair?

There is no pair without two people. So how do you go about picking who to interview with? Below are some tips that we think will lead to a pleasant and successful pair-interviewing experience. In an ideal situation, you can check off all the boxes, but in reality, the choice may be constrained by logistics and resources.

  1. Pick someone that you can imagine spending a lot of time with:

    • Interviewing is fun, but it is also a hefty time commitment. So we make this suggestion with the hope that you can find joy in your research partially because you enjoy spending time with the other interviewer.
    • With this in mind, we recommend picking someone you know at least a little beforehand so that you can know whether or not you will be ok spending large amounts of time with them.
    • You don’t have to be best friends to work together, but there should be mutual respect.

  2. Pick someone who can benefit from the process and research goals. Your pair can benefit in the following ways:

    • Learning a new skill, e.g. interviewing.
    • The topic is interesting or relevant to their research and they want to be a co-author.

  3. Pick someone who is available:

    • Planning interviews with participants is hard enough, coordinating between the two interviewers shouldn’t add to logistical difficulties.

  4. Be mindful of identity:

    • Could you pick a partner who understands the domain a little better than you?
    • What different perspectives will your pair bring? How can differing interests enrich the interview process?
    • What power dynamics may exist in your interview? It is important to consider the comfort of your participants especially given that there will be two people conducting the interview, a position that is already more powerful due to the interview structure. Also, consider what aspects of identity (yours and theirs) will impact how your participants may feel in the interview.
Food for thought 🥪
It might be just as important to consider when a pair-interview might not be successful. If you have a very specific vision for the interviews and you find it hard to imagine someone else affecting the direction of the interview, then maybe a pair-interview is not for you. Or maybe, you want to be solely responsible for the interpretation of the interview material — while you can conduct analysis independently in a pair-interview, ultimately, the benefit of having an interview partner is also the perspective that they will bring.


When?

You can conduct pair-interviews whenever you want, but there are important considerations that may impact the effectiveness of conducting pair-interviews. Pair-interviews are helpful when you are hoping for a second-perspective to understand the interview. This can also be done in analysis, but there are many aspects of interviews that are difficult to capture in transcripts and also, there is no way to ask follow-up questions and affect the direction of the interview after the interview is over.

Online or In-Person?

Our experiences were both in-person and online. For the online interviews, we had success with both interviewers calling from the same room and calling from different rooms. When considering whether to conduct your interviews online or in-person, consider the following:

  • is your participant pool international or local? what role does local v. global perspectives play in your research question?
  • will occupying the same physical space as your participants help in either communicating or making the interview run smoother?
    • In one project, participants were asked to reflect on past experiences, thus a shared physical presence did not affect our interviews
    • In another project, participants were asked to discuss their personal data. In this instance, the interviews were conducted in-person so that the participants and interviewers could point to displays of the data as a reference object.

Staying in Sync

It is important to dedicate time before and after the interviews to talk about the interviews, the interview logistics, and other tangentially related interview topics.

Plan time before

  • Gets you in the right headspace
  • A good time to review important information about who you are interviewing
  • If it is your first interview or you are alternating roles, plan to discuss each interviewer’s responsibilities
  • Discuss what you want to focus on for the interview
  • Discuss how the navigator will signal to the driver to get the interview back on track
Insight 💡
If the interview is online, you can use the time before the interview to do a technical setup check. If the interview is in-person, you can use the time before while you commute and/or prepare necessary materials.

During the Interview

Communicate according to your plan and roles.

Insight 💡
Keep the interview like a three-way conversation between you, your pair interviewer, and the participant. Across our experiences, the interviewers discussed transitioning to different interview sections or moving onto new topics so that the participant would also be looped in. In fact, in one instance, the interviewers were trying to use only eye contact and the participant later commented on finding it a little weird.

Spend time after

  • Discussing what the participant said and how the interview went generally
  • It’s an opportunity to collectively reflect on contents of the interview
  • It’s a good time to discuss whether anything was unclear
  • Bring up concerns or discuss what you might want to change about the interview
Insight 💡
This could be a great time to grab a cup of coffee or a post-interview snack You can either do this in a more structured way or during the commute back, but don’t omit the chat afterward — given the open and ambiguous nature of interviews, reflection is an opportunity to learn-as-you-go and refine the interview questions as you learn more and hone in on emergent and salient themes.