Face-to-face interview
A face-to-face interview is an interview conducted in person, with the interviewer and participant in the same place, whether a home, an office, a store or a research facility. It gives the fullest view of a participant, including body language and surroundings.
How it works
In person, an interviewer sees nonverbal cues, can show and handle physical materials, observe the setting and build rapport through presence. In large UK social surveys it is the most common mode, and the UK Data Service describes interviewers visiting sampled addresses, reading questions from a laptop, showing cards of answer options and handing the laptop over for sensitive questions.
The costs are travel, time and geography, so in-person studies run slower, cost more and tend to cluster in a few cities. Teams therefore reserve them for studies where the setting, a physical product or a sensitive subject makes presence worth the cost, and run the rest by phone or video.
A worked example
A medical device company tests a new insulin pen with 16 patients face to face, so it can watch them use it. On video, participants had said the dial was clear. In person, researchers see 6 of the 16 hold the pen too close to read the dial at all, and the numbers are enlarged.
Related
Automate this in Pulse
Body language is what a face-to-face interviewer reads across the table, and Pulse's video insights keep some of that, the frown or smile a participant makes while answering.