Depth interview

Depth comes from probing. A guide lists the topics, but most of the hour is spent on follow-ups built from the participant's own words: "Tell me about the last time that happened", "What made you decide that?", "What did you do next?". Because the conversation is private, participants discuss topics they would not raise in a group, such as money, health or conflict at work.

Depth interviews are usually semi-structured, recorded and transcribed for analysis. Studies typically include a modest number of participants chosen to cover the variation that matters, and continue until new interviews stop adding new themes. Analysis then looks for patterns across the accounts, quoting participants to show each one.

A hearing-aid maker runs 20 depth interviews, an hour each, with new owners who stopped wearing their aids within 6 months. In 13 of them, the account turns on the same scene, a noisy restaurant where the aids amplified everything at once, after which the owner left them in a drawer. Fittings now end with a program for noisy rooms, set up before the owner leaves.

• Ethnography
• Phenomenology
• Active listening
• Qualitative data
• Reflexivity
• Highlight reel
• Semi-structured interview
• Telephone interview

Laddering, the depth interviewer's habit of asking why a feature matters and then why that matters, is something Pulse's moderator can keep doing until the participant reaches the value underneath.

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