27. How do I Interview like a Detective (part 1)?

Drew Freeman: Hey Joe, how's it going?

Joe Marcantano: I'm doing well, Drew, how are you doing?

Drew Freeman: I am still a little tired, still a little discombobulated. I just got back yesterday after a work trip in a long day of travel. So apologies to everyone if my brain is even more chaotic today and if my voice gets a little rough around the edges.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. Without giving away too m much about like where you live, you live outside of a city that doesn't have a ton of direct flights. So I imagine there's like traving there'like.

Drew Freeman: Five or six direct flights to places. So yeah, basically anytime I go anywhere it requires a layover, which is always a bummer, especially when your connection get or when you're first flight gets delayed and you miss connections and you have to scramble to get everything. I ended up flying into it, you know, connecting through a different city than I originally was supposed to and ended up running through the airport and making my connection to my home city on on final boarding notice. So, you know, that was fun.

Joe Marcantano: Hey, but you made it home on the same day, so.

Drew Freeman: I made it home on the same day. I got to sleep in my own bed. It all ended up just fine. It was just a little bit more frantic and frustrating than I was hoping it would be.

Joe Marcantano: Well, hopefully this episode is a little less frantic and frustrating then.

Drew Freeman: You're doing the heavy lifting on this one, so I certainly hope so.

Joe Marcantano: That is true.

Drew Freeman: All right, Joe, so I know that you and I have talked about this in our personal lives many times and I think we've mentioned it kind of in passing on the show, but ah, you were a police officer. You were in law enforcement for 15 years, right?

Joe Marcantano: Just shy. Yeah.

Drew Freeman: And you have lots of, you wore lots of different hats in that role, both literally. Literally and figuratively. you were a, on the street patrol officer for a number of years. You were a detective and you were a sergeant. So you've got a lot of different viewpoints and experiences that I think are, you know, other people might not think are directly transferable to UX research, but I think they are. So we're gonna do a little mini two part series here. So I'm gonna let Joe kind of give us the details but we're gonna have two weeks of listening to Joe as an expert in interviews and have him give us his experience and his thoughts on what he learned as a police officer. Conducting interviews can translate into conducting interviews and conducting sessions as a UX researcher.

Joe Marcantano: Part one of this is definitely going to be focused more on, I'll call it the prep work or things to think about ahead of time. And we'll even talk about considerations, for in person interviewing. And then part two is gonna be much more of the kind of nuts and bolts strategies, things that I do during interviews.

Drew Freeman: Okay, Joe, so the question for both this week and next week, how can I interview like a detective?

Joe Marcantano: it's a lot of fun for me to talk about this and, you know, talk about the things that I learned as a detective and how I use them when I run interviews. I do want to, like, stress an important point, though, in that the way I do interviews and the things that I learned as a detective, these are not the only ways to do an interview. You might hear me talk about stuff and be like, I kind of do that, or no, I don't like that. And all that's fine. My goal with this is to provide everyone with a few extra tools for their tool belt or their toolbox. The goal is not to replace the things that you already do or you already know how to do.

Drew Freeman: Well, no, the goal of this is to give a different perspective from someone who has a different angle on this than many other UX researchers would. And you, as a listener, if you take away 10% of. And like, yeah, I want to give that a try, that's a win for this episode, 100%.

Joe Marcantano: And so I've kind of divided this up into basically two sections. And the first section is very much more towards if you're doing research in person, if you're not doing it remotely.

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Joe Marcantano: Because I don't know if everybody knows this, but detectives do not do remote interviews. That's not a thing. So if you're somebody who never runs in person interviews, then hopefully you get to learn a little bit and hear a little bit about how it's run. but if you're not interested, you could certainly skip to the second part where we're gonna talk more about running the actual interview and considerations for actually running the interview.

Drew Freeman: But I'm going to say that you shouldn't skip ahead. You should just listen and learn anyway.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly. So the first thing you want to think about when you're doing an interview, before it starts, is the physical Space where you're going to conduct the interview. I'm sure everyone has seen Law and Order or any other police show where the interview room is kind of this dingy old rundown room. There's stains on the wall and the floor is concrete and there's like one light over a table in the center of the room. That's not really realistic. There are probably some departments that do that still, but most police departments do not run interviews like that. It should be a well lit, comfortable space. The space is going to be wired for video and sound, but in an unobtrusive way. So you're not going to see, or you shouldn't see a digital recorder sitting on the table or a microphone on the table. These things should be built into the walls. And then speaking of the table, most interview rooms, it very much used to be that a detective and a subject would sit on opposite sides of a table. That's not really best practice anymore. The table should kind of be pushed up against the wall with both people sitting on the same side of it.

Drew Freeman: And why is that? Why did the best practice change from sitting across from the person you're interviewing to sitting more on the same side?

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. So sitting across, number one, kind of has the benefit of like, you're naturally facing each other. Right. You can look at the person as you're talking to them. It also not something UX folks think about, but something police officers think about. It provided a safety mechanism. There was, if you're interviewing a suspect and that suspect became violent, you had something between you and the suspect that you could use to buy you a couple of seconds to stand up or to back out of the room.

Drew Freeman: There was physical space.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly. And there was an obstruction between you in that physical space. but that also creates an adversarial relationship. It's this side and that side. It's my team and your team. Even's me against cons conscious. Exactly. So moving the table to the side of the wall, against the wall, so that you're sitting on the same side of it creates this mental impression of we are both on the same side. We are both working together to get to an answer.

Drew Freeman: Which for a UX researcher is exactly the impression that we want to create.

Joe Marcantano: Because it's the truth.

Drew Freeman: Exactly.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. This is something, you know, we want this. We don't want a UX interview to. You almost don't want it to feel like an interview. You want it to feel like a collaborative conversation, even though in reality you are interviewing the participant.

Drew Freeman: I very, very Rarely say always or never, but this might be an exception. I never want, any of my interview testing, whatever sessions to feel adversarial. I can't think of a time where I would want my session to feel adversarial.

Joe Marcantano: No, I can't either. there are certainly, obviously when you're doing detective interviews of suspects, there are instances where kind of pushing somebody a little bit and creating that adversarial, relationship might benefit because that person might trip up. But that's not really the goal of a UX interview. So I can't think of a situation where I would want to do that there.

Drew Freeman: I mean, I'm sure that, I'm sure that it's not as true as the cliche would make it out to be, but I have to imagine that there's a reason good cop, bad cop exists.

Joe Marcantano: Oh, for sure. It's certainly not as cliche as the TV shows show it to be, but it is absolutely a tactic where somebody will come in and be kind of a jerk and then the next person comes in and is really nice. sometimes you'll have the, the quote, bad cop come in and be a bad cop to both the good cop and the suspect to kind of create this us versus that person mentality.

Drew Freeman: I would listen to you talk about like the psychology of police detective work and police detective interviewing all day long, but we don't have that kind of time. So. Okay, let's talk more about how

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Drew Freeman: you can, how you translated the physical space from your time as a detective into what best practices for the physical space as a UX researcher.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. So a lot of this is going toa be determined on the facilities that you have. Right. This is not necessarily something you have a ton of leeway in. maybe your room that's dedicated interviews isn't wired for video or sound. And so you're gonna have to have a digital recorder or you're gonna have to have a note taker there in the room. But you should definitely do the things that you can do. So that includes pushing the table up against the wall. You want a cleaner look. You don't want, you know, pictures on the wall and knick knacks on the desk. You want to reduce or minimize distractions.

Drew Freeman: With that being said, you also don't want it to feel completely sterile.

Joe Marcantano: Yes. You don't want it to be like.

Drew Freeman: A closet or even like a wall. You know, a room with four white painted walls.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly. You gotta kind of find that balance to strike between this is you want.

Drew Freeman: It to Be comfortable but not distracting.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly.

Drew Freeman: I guess kind of the mental image. As someone who goes to therapy, in my personal life, a therapist's room is the image that comes to my mind.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, that's what I would think too. You've got softer colored walls. Maybe one wall is painted a different color. You can have like flowers against a wall somewhere or a lamp.

Drew Freeman: But you might have one painting that's like very generic landscape or something like that.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, the three dollar Goodwill painting.

Drew Freeman: Exactly.

Joe Marcantano: But you're not putting all your trophies on a shelf. You don't have all your, your legos sitting there. You're reducing the things that might strike up conversations other than what you're there to talk about.

Drew Freeman: Okay, so talk about you many times when I'm doing UX research, I'm not in a purpose built facility that has a two way mirror so that observers can watch from another room. I'm not in a situation where the sound and video recording is built into the walls. How do you go about making sure that you have those things and you have those capabilities, but not in a way that is detrimental for the person that you're talking to.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. So the first thing you're going to want to do is test whatever setup you're going toa go with. So like if the recording is not built into the walls, you know, it s, you don't have. The room isn't wired for sound and there's no video cameras. Put the video camera if you're going to record video or the digital recorder in whatever place you want to put it. But then bring somebody into that room to test it because you might say, oh, the digital recorder will work great if I set it behind the laptop. But maybe it creates some weird echoey.

Drew Freeman: Effect or all it hears is you typing on your keyboard.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly. So test that. You'renna want toa find a place to put it where it both records well. But doesn't become this likeal intrusive. Yeah. Focal point or distraction for the participants. And maybe the best you can do is setting it on the table beforehand. Definitely call it out. Don't ignore it. Just say, hey, we are recording this. I've put the recorder right here between us. Let me know if you need a break or you want to stop.

Drew Freeman: One thing that has worked really well for me in previous experience are, you know, cheap little clip on microphones where you can just have the participant and you as the researcher clip a mic to your collar or you know, the neck of your shirt. Have the participant do the Same. And then just put the little, you know, like the rest of the unit in a pocket somewhere. I've found that that works really well.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I think that's a really great idea. It becomes easy to forget if your microphone is not in your field of vision. I'm also thinking about like the number of times I'm scrolling through YouTube shorts and I see these folks either holding or wearing one of these microphones and it's become so ubiquitous that I don't even think about it anymore.

Drew Freeman: That's a good point. Okay, so how do you recommend doing a similar thing with the video recording equipment?

Joe Marcantano: You're going to want to put that. There's a couple ways to do it. The benefit of putting it in front where it records your faces is that you can see the participants face, you can see how they react. you won't get to see what they're looking at then. And it also has the downside of it's right there, it's a reminder for them where if you kind of put it behind somewhere so that it catches the screen and maybe it catches kind of the back third or two thirds of them, you'll still get kind of the cue

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Joe Marcantano: reminders where you can be like they were confused at this moment, because you'll have both their physical movements, but also what they're looking at as a cue. It also then is easier to forget about because it's not right in front of them. The other thing you can do is there are programs that will allow you to record right on the laptops. So you could use the laptop recorder, to record them, looking at whatever prototype or usability testing you're doing, presuming that's the kind of test you're doing.

Drew Freeman: So I have experience doing in person testing that isn't on a laptop screen, that is, you know, with a physical product, not a digital thing on a screen. And the way that we've done it works really well for the researcher. I think it, you know, becomes unobtrusive and stays unobtrusive for, for the participants and is relatively inexpensive. And that's using a handful of GoPro cameras. And then, you know, you can use a free or a very cheap software to essentially just tie those multiple, those multiple streams together in, when you're doing the video editing. So you can get, you know, a view of maybe 20 or 30 degrees off of straight front, fully fronting the participant's face so that you can see those reactions and you can see those facial expressions and then I can also have a, ah, camera view that is basically straight down on top of the prototype that the physical product that we're looking at. And maybe I can get, you know, like, if it's a, if there's some store shelving that we're trying to mock out, I can have another view of that store shelving so that when a participant goes to grab at something, I can look where they're reaching and stopping, I can see what they're looking at, that kind of thing.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I love the idea of a top down view so you could actually really see how they interact with whatever physical product you're testing.

Drew Freeman: Okay, so let's talk about in, in those like police dramas, in those courtroom dramas. So much of the drama, in an interview is all about the power dynamic between the subject and the interviewer. How does that work and how does that translate to a UX space?

Joe Marcantano: Certainly not to the same degree, but there absolutely is a power dynamic in.

Drew Freeman: Are you telling me that those police procedural dramas aren't actually realistic?

Joe Marcantano: It's weird, right? That Hollywood might not get it perfectly right. But yeah, there is a power dynamic in an interview. When you're doing a UX interview, you as the interviewer decide when the interview starts, what's discussed, what the order is when the interview ends. Now you can certainly relinquish this power. You can tell somebody, hey, we can stop whenever you want. We, I have some things to cover, but we'll kind of go with the flow in the conversation. But this person is either physically walking in or logging in, not really knowing what they're going to talk about. You've kind of done all this prep work and you are very prepared. They are walking into kind of an unknown and abyss. The best way to think about this is like when was the last time you had a job interview? You kind of had a general idea of what they were going to ask and what you would talk about, but you didn't know the specific questions. And so there's that kind of power dynamic where it might be more of like an informational power dynamic, but the researcher absolutely had the power there.

Drew Freeman: Okay, so as a researcher, how do you kind of account for that power dynamic and what do you think about when it comes to altering how you work or you know, what impacts it might have on the interview?

Joe Marcantano: So understanding the impacts are really important. Right, because that's the, the thing you're going to kind of take account for in your analysis and try to mitigate. And so really, I have two big Things that I think that folks are going to either intentionally or unintentionally do. I think that they're going to be less likely to correct you or disagree with something you say. So if you were to start out with, and obviously this is very obvious and very leading, but if you were to start out by saying, hey, I want to show you this new really cool prototype, well, you have kind of planted the seed in that person's head that this thing now is really cool. And maybe they might be less likely to be critical of it. So it's just being conscious and cognizant of how you might prime or reveal what you think about what you're testing.

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Joe Marcantano: Because due to that power dynamic, somebody might, even if it's subconsciously, be less likely to disagree with you.

Drew Freeman: The good news is that the. The impacts of any potential power dynamic here. There'already things that we're thinking about when it comes to minimizing and reducing bias.

Joe Marcantano: For sure.

Drew Freeman: This isn't something like extra that you necessarily have to think about.

Joe Marcantano: No, not at all. And then the. The second thing is that because of this power dynamic, there may be a desire or a need or a want to impress you or to say what you want to hear or what they think you want to hear. Again, something we already think about as UX researchers. But just another angle to think about it is that, you know, you do hold the power in this situation, and so be cognizant of the fact that this person might just try to say what you want to hear.

Drew Freeman: Which is why it becomes extra important to make sure in your introductory spiel that you're, you know, saying the things like, I wasn't involved in the design of this sidebar, even if you were. And I, you know, I want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. I want to hear what you think. I'm. You're the expert here on your opinion. Those kinds of things that we all know we need to be doing anyway.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly. I always tell folks, hey, I'm not on the team. I was brought in to test this.

Drew Freeman: You're not gonna hurt my feelings.

Joe Marcantano: You're not hurting my feelings. And if somebody needs to be the bad guy to the people who developed it, that's my job. I ain't gonna throw you under the bus and be like, person number six really hated it. And they said xyz.

Drew Freeman: Okay. So something that you and I have talked about previously is really, as a detective, spending a lot of time thinking about who the best detective is to conduct an Interview. How does that translate?

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, this is something that detectives think a lot about. And I think that as researchers, we don't think about this as much as we should. So to start off in kind of the police world, if I am interviewing somebody or I'll say if somebody needs to be interviewed, let, let's say they're a suspect and they are a suspect. It is a man, it's the husband, and he is the suspect in a domestic assault. It may or may not be best for us to have a female detective come in and do the interview. It might be better to have a male detective come in and do the interview to somebody that this suspect thinks this person might be on my side, this person might help me come across in the best light. Conversely, if we are interviewing a woman who is the victim of a sexual assault, they may not feel as open to a male detective. It might be best to bring in a female detective. The same thing with somebody who might be the victim of a race based crime, or even the suspect in a race based crime. Bringing in somebody from that person's peer group is going to make them feel more comfortable, help them drop their guard. Now, to translate that into UX work, we do a lot of work on computer programs and applications where that may not necessarily be a factor. Right.

Drew Freeman: Or, you know, where we're designing for some subset of the general population.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, but if we're testing a physical product that might be a gender specific physical product, or maybe our market is.

Drew Freeman: A specific cultural group or has specific job qualifications. like doctors, for example.

Joe Marcantano: Exactly. Then they might respond better or might respond more openly to someone who they think gets their group or to somebody who is a part of their group or was a part of their group. So picking the right researcher for the recruitment cohort really can make a big difference.

Drew Freeman: Which is not to say that you need to be switching out your moderator for every different participant.

Joe Marcantano: No. And you know, to jump back to my law enforcement example, you know, myself, like, people can't see me, I'm a white dude. I might not be the best person to conduct an interview on a race based crime where the victim is black. Does that mean I can't or shouldn't ever do the interview? No, because sometimes there just may not be somebody of that peer group

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Joe Marcantano: available and we have to do the interview. You can do it. Just be conscious of the fact that that person might not be as open or you might need to do a little more to build rapport and connect. Or you might need to just note in Your readout, hey, there was a gap. And these results have a slightly reduced level of certainty.

Drew Freeman: Okay. So I think the next thing that I think about when it comes to finding the right moderator for your study is you've chosen the person. You know, maybe it's the only person available for the project. How do you then take the next step of really embodying fitting in with that group and making that group comfortable with you as the moderator?

Joe Marcantano: This is one of my favorite things to talk about because I think it gets ignored a lot. And, I call this dressing for the occasion. So consider the effect that your attire might have on the situation. So, for example, when I was a policeman, when I was a detective, that is, I always kept a uniform in my locker, a full uniform. And that's because sometimes that person might react more positively to a uniform. So, for example, if I'm interviewing a, witness who happens to be a child, maybe they're 9, 10 years old, they are likely going to feel a little more comfortable talking to somebody who's kind of wearing the, the outfit of the policeman rather than a, suit and tie or slacks in a shirt. But conversely, if I am interviewing, you know, a suspect who's kind of been through the ringer once or twice, I'm going to have kind of an increased, reputation if I show up in plain clothes, because this person is then going to think, oh, they're not just a regular cop. This is a detective. They're plain clothes. People are going to make judgments, and assumptions based on what you're wearing may not be right, but it's what people do. So the examples I always throw out is like, if your recruitment cohort is college students, are they going to react the same to you if you're wearing a suit and tie versus jeans in a T shirt? What if your. Your, recruitment cohort is CEOs and COO of Fortune 500 companies? How are they gonna react if you show up to an interview wearing jeans in a hoodie versus if you put on a suit and tie or you put on slacks? You know, what if you're doing. What if you're on site and you're at an amusement park or a water park? You know, think about how your presentation of yourself is going to inform the participants judgment of you and how they initially perceive you.

Drew Freeman: M. In general, you need to make sure that you're being viewed as a professional, someone who is, knows what they're doing and, you know, is worthy of this person's time. This interview participants'time but there are so many different ways that you can present yourself as professional and still match the level of what you're expecting from your participants. There's a wide latitude there.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, exactly. You know, if you are interviewing a more informal group, you know, yes. That means you get to dress down a little, but don't show up wearing sweatpants or blue jeans with holes in them or, you know, a, graphic T shirt with something inappropriate on it. You still want to let them know that, you know, hey, I'm not showing up in a suit and tie, but I am still doing my job here.

Drew Freeman: For me, doing these gen pop studies that I've typically been doing in person, my go to is nice jeans or casual slacks and a polo, easy, comfortable. But I still look very professional without feeling, without the kind of connotation that I'm overdressed in a suit and a tie, for example.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I think you could go polo pretty safely. I think you could also wear a kind of monoolor one colored T shirt if it's a nice shirt. you know, nothing with designs or logos on it, but yeah, for sure. You want to still kind of be dressed

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Joe Marcantano: in a manner that your employer.

Drew Freeman: Would not frown upon because you still are an employee. You still are an employee.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. The last thing I kind of put down here is, you know, everything that I've talked about, about dressing for the occasion, you always want to defer to your company or your client's dress code. Right. So, like, if your company dress code is I have to wear slacks and a collared shirt no matter what, then it doesn't matter who your recruitment cohort is. You follow the directions of your employer.

Drew Freeman: All right, Joe, I think that is. I mean, I love having these conversations with you. I could pick your brain on being in law enforcement and being a law enforcement officer for so many years. It. It is a viewpoint and a perspective that I do not have and will not, I expect that I will not ever have. So it's always interesting for me to hear from you on that.

Joe Marcantano: I'm happy to share it. I hope that folks find this valuable.

Drew Freeman: As someone who does and has done a lot of in person UX in particular, I think all of this is eminently transferable and people should absolutely take bits and pieces of this and adjust and incorporate into their own routines.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I know I certainly have it, you know, certainly more than most. It definitely frames a big part of how I think about interviews.

Drew Freeman: Okay, so obviously there was a lot here, but obviously Joe still has more information to impart and more knowledge to give. So we will come back next week, and we're going to talk about, like, the actual session, the actual interview. What has he learned from doing interviews as a detective and as a police officer that he wants to incorporate into his work, as a UX researcher? So we're really looking forward to that, and we hope that you'll be back next week for that episode.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Drew Freeman: All right. So again, thank you for joining us for this part one of this little mini series. Please give us a like and a subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. Please, please send us your questions. Send us questions that you want to hear us discuss and answer. You can do that at insideuxr@gmail.com. i'm Drew Freeman.

Joe Marcantano: And I'm Joe Marintano.

Drew Freeman: And we'll see you next week.

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