Leading Libraries Series: Leading for Innovation
Inquiry and reflection
Qualitative methods: Understanding people's 'lived experience'
In innovation approaches, our Inquire stage builds in both quantitative and qualitative information rather than relying on purely quantitative data.
Many of our public service improvement processes weigh heavily towards quantitative data – which is very important in helping us understand the scale of an issue, set resource and budget expectations and get a feel for how many people a change
will impact. But this data is less good at helping us to 'get under the skin' of an issue as our stakeholders experience it or as a way of generating new insights. Design Thinking approaches to innovation place a heavy focus on understanding
the personal 'lived experience' of the people we are trying to innovate for – our users, stakeholders and colleagues. By getting to understand people's opinions and feelings about the services and by listening to their stories, we can
often find a totally new perspective on the changes we are trying to create.
| Quantitative data |
Qualitative data |
| Answers 'what', 'where', 'when', 'who' |
Answers 'why', 'what for', 'how' |
| Based on numbers |
Based on experience and opinions |
| Larger sample size |
Smaller sample size |
| Statistical analysis |
Effectiveness and observation |
| Objective |
Subjective |
| Closed-ended questions |
Open-ended questions |
| To validate hypotheses |
To generate hypotheses of develop ideas |
This is not to say that quantitative research is not important – it is vital in incremental service improvement and in helping us understand whether a given change is working or not. It's just not enough for innovation.
Qualitative methods for innovation
Qualitative research is a whole academic field in its own right but here we focus on five of the inquiry methods that are the most widely used in innovation and design thinking approaches.
- Interviews (users, non-users, other professionals)
- Shadowing (people in and around your service)
- Service safaris (visiting other providers, not necessarily library services)
- Storytelling groups (or rather, story-listening! - in groups or one-to-one)
- Horizon scanning (learning from others who have worked on the issue)
Interviews
Interviews are conversations, either face-to-face or on the phone, that aim to gather information from people you are interested in.
Why? Interviews can help you to gather knowledge from people – perhaps professionals, experts or service users- whose experiences or knowledge you are interested in
How? The best interviews are well designed, following a structure that ensures good quality responses in the minimum amount of time. Interviews are ideally conducted with a respondent who is prepared for the interview and understands
its purpose.
Here are some things to remember:
- Being a good researcher is about listening and encouraging people to tell stories about themselves. Ask open-ended questions that start with “tell me about”, “why” or “how”.
- Be prepared. Making people feel comfortable is key and this relies a great deal on the researcher being relaxed and confident. The best route to having a flexible, informative conversation is to have questions, or at least a vague structure,
prepared in advance to ensure time is used productively.
- Choose who you want to interview carefully – are they the right target group to get answers to the right questions?
- Give people space and time to think and answer – don’t be scared of silence or feel you have to race through all the questions.
- Use gentle prompts to encourage people to delve deeper, e.g., “Tell me more about that…”.
Shadowing
Shadowing and observing is a method used to learn more about people, become inspired or find the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Why? This method can help uncover the reality of what people do without relying solely on what they tell you they do, helping to illuminate barriers and opportunities to the researcher.
How? It is generally a good idea to prepare a list of topics to discuss while conducting your observation. If you are shadowing a member of staff, for example, you could ask them about what they enjoy about their job, what they find
challenging or what they would like to change about it. Questions for service users might focus more on their experience of using the service. Don’t forget to ask mundane questions because you never know what they could uncover. It is
also helpful to find out about people’s interactions with services and spaces, and to identify the features that engage people as well as the ones they find frustrating.
Before shadowing people, it is important to ask their permission and to explain what you’re doing. In some cases you may want to offer an incentive to those taking part. It is also helpful to carry a Dictaphone or other voice recording advice
so you can reflect on what you have heard afterwards.
Service safaris
Service safaris are visits to other organisations to understand how their service works and what the experience feels like.
Why? This method helps you to learn from different organisations such as commercial stores, sports venues and other civic institutions that provide services and experiences to service users. It can provide inspiration or highlight features
that can be applied to your service.
How? The idea is to select two or three places that you would like to visit as a researcher rather than as a customer. You would then plan the elements you would like to explore such as the experiences of ‘getting help’, ‘entry and
orientation’, signage, how people interact and how long-term engagement is secured. It's very useful to bring a camera or your phone to remind you of what you learned and capture your key insights at the end of the visit.
Storytelling groups
Storytelling can be a compelling way of bringing to life examples of innovative case studies and helping participants to reflect on them.
Why? Facilitators are able to emphasise key features and themes of stories and participants are able to ask questions, discuss their thoughts and learn about commonalities and differences between the case studies. Storytelling can be
used to prototype an idea or to generate discussion about a given topic.
How? Facilitators tend to divide workshop participants into small groups to whom they will share different stories. Following questions and discussion, the small teams may return to a larger group to share the story they have just heard
with the rest of the group, generating further exploration of ideas. A great storytelling exercise is engaging, making listeners curious and invoking conversation or inspiration.
Horizon scanning
Horizon Scanning is an analytical method of looking around the world for inspiring examples of products, services or programmes that have worked within similar constraints or towards similar objectives as your own.
Why? One of the best ways of addressing a challenge is by examining the successful work of others. Horizon Scanning can both inspire and inform, offering insights into successful endeavors as well as the principles underpinning them.
How? An internet search is a good place to start, as is utilizing networks – whether personal, social or professional. Start as widely as possible for inspiration and then refine the list. As a rule of thumb, aim for a long list containing
twice as many examples than required.
You as a researcher
Whichever methods you choose for gathering your qualitative data, there are some principles that are worth observing as you go – principles that are drawn from thousands of people's experiences of 'keeping an open mind' as they go about their
Discovery process.
- Insights come from everywhere – keep eyes, ears, minds and hearts open
- Capture what you are learning – notes, recording, camera, video
- Start conversations, observe live, dig deep
- Be comfortable with uncertainty – embrace ‘not knowing the answers’
- Let yourself explore and empathise – allow insights to come – they can be analysed later
- Let them do the talking – you do the listening - ask open questions to stimulate the conversation
- Try to put your interviewee at ease – there are no wrong answers, you want to understand their experience
- Most importantly – stay out of solution mode. If you have an idea, write it down for later but keep exploring!
Pause for reflection
Which of the qualitative methods listed above feel most appealing to you?
Which combination of methods is most suitable for the Innovation Challenge you have chosen? Which fit best with your context?
Which ones would you like to learn more about? [You can research all of these approaches using the links in the 'Additional Resources' section]
Which one could you get going on right now? Who else do you want to involve in your Discovery phase? [You can use the template here to plan out your Discovery process].
Planning your research process
You should now be ready to begin planning the inquiry steps you want to conduct to learn more about your innovation challenge. We have created a set of templates which will help you:
Continue to: Pulling it all together
Print Page
