Walkthrough Interview

INTRO

PART 1 >>>

“Hi, we’re Eedan Amit-Danhi ,  Qinfeng Zhu, and Thijs de Zee. Thank you for agreeing to take part in this interview for our project, which deals with the tool of political compasses. What we’ll be doing together is called a ‘walkthrough interview’. We’ll start by asking some questions in order to get to know you a little better, and then we will introduce you to a tool, ask you to use it as best you can, and we’ll try and get to know a bit more about what you think about it, as you use it. After this is completed, we’ll ask you some reflection questions, to get your opinion about its usability and how it may help you or not in future elections. 

It is important to say that

1. You are free to stop the interview at any time

2. While it deals with political topics, the topic of this interview is the tool and how you use it

3. The transcripts and our notes will be anonymized, and the recordings will be deleted as we transcribe the data. So you can feel free to express your thoughts and opinions.

4. This interview should take about 30-45 minutes depending on the level of detail we get into. “

Tell us a bit about yourself (5)

• Where were you born, and shortly, how did you get to live here?

• What do you do for work?

• Tell us about your family 

• Political involvement at the national and local level (5) 

• How involved would you say you are in local, provincial politics?

• Do you always vote? Why?

• Have you ever used a choosing aid like a political compass?

• If yes >> which election, what has been your experience, have found it useful? 

• Why did you use it?

• Have you ever discussed or shared the results of these tools with peers or family members?

PART 2 >>

We’ll show you a political compass which consists of two axes: progressive and conservative, and left-right. Please indicate where you believe your political stance  would place you. 

(If asked, use the example of welfare to exemplify left-right; and the example of marriage equality for progressive-conservative)

In practice, 2nd interviewer shares screen with the rest of the meeting, and moves the marker according to the interviewee’s instructions.

[Use this slide template to make an anonymized copy containing only the interview number, where the interviewee places themselves on the “blind compass”]  

• Can you elaborate on why did you choose this placement? 

• Why did you choose to locate yourself close to the… party/axis.  

PART 3 >>>

• Open compass

• Before we start, have you used this tool? If yes, what did you think about it?

• Please start using the compass, and we will ask you to verbalize what you’re thinking as you’re making your choices in each page. 

[when users don’t seem to verbalize naturally, try and ask guiding questions like “returning to the last phrase, why did you rate it? So far, has this been easy? What are things that could be done better?”]

[when participant is done, 2nd interviewer (logged in from a different computer) screenshots the full compass and paste onto the 2nd slide in their copy of the template]

part 4>>>

• How do you feel about the compass’ reflection of your placement, in comparison to your manual one?

• Which is the more accurate depiction of your political identity? And why?

• What do you think about the parties that the compass has highlighted for you? Have you ever voted or supported the parties most closely placed to you on the automated compass?

• [if there was a discrepancy] Why do you think that is?

• What do you think about Kieskompas and similar tools? Can they be made better somehow?

Thank you so much for your time and willingness to participate. 

If we will have future studies about political compasses, can we contact you for a follow up interview?