Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Note
A terse response, such as “I fill out customer sales orders,” will provide you with
little information, so you'll have to work a bit harder with the participant to get
an idea of what this process involves. Terse responses commonly indicate that the
participantisjustnervousoruncomfortable.Inthiscase,youcouldputhimatease
by discussing an unrelated topic for a few moments or by allowing him to select a
more familiar or comfortable subject as a starting point.
Identifying Subjects
As you ask each open-ended question, identify the subjects suggested within the response
to the question. You can identify subjects by looking for
nouns
within the sentences that
make up the response. Subjects are always represented by nouns and identify a person,
place, thing, or event (something that occurs at a given point in time). There are some
nouns,however,thatrepresenta
characteristic
ofaperson,place,thing,orevent;youdon't
need to concern yourself with these just yet. Therefore, make sure you only look for nouns
that
specifically
represent a person, place, thing, or event. (Note that there's no need to
markmorethanoneoccurrenceofagivennoun.)Youcanensurethatyouaccountforevery
subject you need to discuss by marking the nouns with a double-underline as you identify
them, as in this example:
“As an
account representative
, I'm responsible for ten
clients
.
Each of my clients makes an
appointment
to come into the
show-
room
toviewthe
merchandise
wehavetoofferforthecurrent
sea-
son
.Partofmy
job
istoansweranyquestionstheyhaveaboutour
merchandise andmakerecommendations regardingthemostpop-
ular
items
. Once they make a decision on the merchandise they'd
liketopurchase,Iwriteupa
salesorder
fortheclient. ThenIgive
the sales order to my
assistant
, who promptly fills the order and
sends it to the client.”
Afteryou'veidentifiedalloftheappropriatenounswithintheresponse,listthemonasheet
of paper; this becomes your
list of subjects.
You'll add more subjects to the list as you con-
tinue to work through the design process. Compile this list carefully and methodically be-
cause you'll use it to generate further discussions as the interview progresses and to help
you define tables later in the design process.
Here are subjects (shown in alphabetical order) that are represented in the previous re-
sponse:
