Interview study: qualitative studies
How to use interviews to evaluate your digital health product.
This page is part of a collection of guidance on evaluating digital health products.
Interviews with users of a digital health product can be carried out to understand their views and experiences.
What to use it for
Use an interview study when:
- you want a more in-depth understanding of users’ thoughts and experiences of your product
- you’re developing your product, to work out how to make it better (formative or iterative evaluation)
- you have open-ended questions about your product
Pros
Benefits include:
- provide in-depth insight into experiences
- can be carried out with low numbers of participants
Cons
Drawbacks include:
- can be time-consuming to carry out
- require participants to give some of their time
- can describe the range of user views, but not how common each view is
How to carry out an interview study
You can use interviews to collect quantitative or qualitative data or both.
Semi-structured interviews are a common approach for collecting qualitative data. These involve open-ended discussion with the participant, guided by a pre-existing plan. Write a discussion guide with a few important questions in advance and use this to guide your conversation. The guide may evolve for later interviews based on responses in earlier interviews.
Interviews can vary in length depending on the context, 20 minutes to an hour is common. Make sure the participant does not feel time-pressured or distracted. You should try to establish a rapport with them.
Sometimes participants are given a task to do before the interview, such as using the product. You may need fewer participants for an interview study than for a quantitative study. One approach is to keep recruiting participants until you are not getting any new insights from extra interviews (saturation of answers).
You should record the interview, using one or more of these methods:
- audio recordings
- video recordings
- notes taken by the evaluator or an assistant
Taking notes is a useful back-up if the recording fails, but note-taking should not get in the way of establishing a rapport with the interviewee.
Transcribe the recordings after the interviews and try to review the transcripts soon after each interview. You may want to share transcripts with participants, allowing them to add to their comments.
Interviews can be carried out in person, by telephone or video conference. They can be carried out via text communication, such as email, but you may get less rich answers.
Interviews are usually analysed using thematic analysis or other qualitative data analysis methods.
Example: physical activity apps for cancer survivors
Roberts and others (2019), Breast, Prostate, and Colorectal Cancer Survivors’ Experiences of Using Publicly Available Physical Activity Mobile Apps: Qualitative Study
The team wanted to evaluate 4 existing apps for the promotion of physical activity to see whether they would work well for cancer survivors.
They chose an interview study because the work was at an early stage of development. They were working out what sort of app or features would work for this patient group.
Recruitment was done through the support of community-based cancer support groups, Facebook cancer support groups and charities. Participants were offered a £10 voucher for their time and to cover any costs of downloading the apps.
Participants had to meet these criteria:
- at least 18 years old
- diagnosed with breast, prostate or colorectal cancer
- has finished primary curative treatment (surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy)
- has not been advised by a clinician not to exercise
- owns a smartphone
Ethical approval for this study was granted by a university research ethics committee.
Short telephone interviews were carried out to confirm participants’ eligibility and to get some background details. Each participant was then randomly assigned 2 of the 4 apps and instructed to use them for a week each consecutively. Afterwards, they were interviewed over the telephone using a discussion guide.
Forty participants were recruited, but 8 dropped out, so 32 completed the study.
The interviews were recorded and transcribed. They were analysed using thematic analysis. This found many factors that affected the participants’ engagement with physical activity apps and how relevant the apps were perceived as being to cancer survivors. Views of different behaviour change techniques used by the apps – for example, prompts, goal setting, incentives – varied a lot.
More information and resources
Braun and Clarke (2006), Using thematic analysis in psychology. This paper outlines how to do thematic analysis.
O’Brien and others (2014), Standard for reporting qualitative research. This paper describes the main elements of a qualitative study.
Qualitative Interview Design: A Practical Guide for Novice Investigators
Examples of interview studies in digital health
Gowin and others (2015), Health and Fitness App Use in College Students: A Qualitative Study. This study interviewed participants about a range of different apps.
Thies and others (2017), Lack of Adoption of a Mobile App to Support Patient Self-Management of Diabetes and Hypertension in a Federally Qualified Health Center: Interview Analysis of Staff and Patients in a Failed Randomized Trial. Researchers tried to carry out a randomised controlled trial but had to abandon this because of low numbers using and engaging with the app. Instead, they interviewed patients and staff about their experience of the app and how it was introduced to patients to understand what had happened.
Crane and others (2017), Factors Influencing Usability of a Smartphone App to Reduce Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Think Aloud and Interview Studies. Researchers conducted 2 sorts of interview studies about an app to reduce alcohol consumption. The first was a ‘think aloud’ study, the second was an interview after users had been given the app to use for 2 weeks.
Langius-Eklöf and others (2017), Adherence to Report and Patient Perception of an Interactive App for Managing Symptoms During Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer: Descriptive Study of Logged and Interview Data.