Data collection using interviews

Ethical issues relating to working with the participants were considered, in order to safeguard their rights. Such issues often arise in data collection (Collins, 2010:82) and must be considered when the research involves interview.

According to Patton (2015:495), interviewees’ thoughts, feelings, knowledge and experience can be evoked through a good interview, as can those of a good interviewer. Participants need to be able to trust the interviewer. They need to know that the researcher is thoughtful, transcribes the data accurately and shares it securely. Participants’ points of view can conflict; therefore, participants need to know that the researcher will value different views and not form judgements.

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Prior to conducting the interviews, ethical clearance was sought and obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the University for the Creative Arts. Any research project to be carried out must meet the legal requirements governing the University. The ethical clearance application included, for example, an explanation of the purposes of the research, how participants were recruited, obtaining consent forms from participants and keeping data confidential. The researcher had to be trained by the University and become familiar with the basic requirements when working with participants. The data collected through interviewing the participants was anonymised and participants were informed that they were free to withdraw at any time.

Data collection was influenced by the work of Bates-Brkljac (2012), who sought responses from stakeholders regarding their perceptions of various presentation tools. Bates-Brkljac’s framework included semi-structured interviews along with sets of differently produced architectural representations, which were presented to and discussed with groups of participants. The groups comprised politicians (elected members of the public), young architects and other professionals in the building environment industry (engineers, building surveyors and planners). The same approach to selecting participant groups was adapted for this research, where various types of participant were chosen for semi-structured interview.

However, unlike Bates-Brkljac’s method, this research employed individual interviews to allow participants to talk freely about their views on the use of digital media and raise any issues that were important to them. According to Ritchie and Lewis (2003:138) and Gillham (2000:1), an interview is a managed verbal exchange and, as such, its effectiveness depends on the communication skills of the interviewer. Face-to-face interviewing is appropriate where intensive meaning is significant and the research is mainly focussed on gaining insight and understanding. The data gathered from interviews implies the significance of personal statements as data. It is important to identify the collaborative quality of research data; the role of the interviewer must be considered, especially in terms of minimising bias and influence (Newton, 2010). This research shows that the face-to-face interview enables interviewer and interviewee to establish a relationship and communicate freely. Often the conversations between interviewer and interviewee lead to more information

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being gathered than the questions would have generated if asked remotely via an administered questionnaire. Participants are free to provide information.

Bates-Brkjac’s (2012) method was adopted for this research, involving participants comprised of professional architects, engineers, planners and clients. Given the qualitative nature of this research, the researcher intended to explore the stakeholders’ subjective experiences in using digital media as part of a collaborative design process. This exploration was carried out by

considering two aspects of that experience: satisfaction and obstacle, both of which are seen as keys of improving communication. The data was categorised and sorted to determine how interactive digital media can be used

collaboratively to improve communication between professionals in the built environment industry, from different professional backgrounds and with different roles.

Data collection began with emails sent to invite participants to attend face-to-face interviews. The semi-structured interviews were scheduled after

participants’ responses were received. The interviews ranged from 20 to 60 minutes. Longer interviews would enhance the depth of information obtained. In order to gain their trust and establish a rapport, the interviewer asked the

participants to meet at a venue of their choice. Some interviews were held in the participants’ offices; others were held in London council buildings or cafés, depending on the interviewees’ preferences. Four sets of open-ended questions were used in the semi-structured interviews for the four categories of

participants. These interviews enabled the sharing of experiences. Knowledge of participants’ working cultures at their place of employment, as well as career pathways, were all considered significant data to this research. A series of guiding questions (see Appendix C) were used as a basis to structure the interviews (see Table 4.1). The questions were developed to identify:

1) The participants’ backgrounds and organisational backgrounds to

acknowledge the various types of projects the participants had worked on and how they communicate within their practices and with other

stakeholders;

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2) Architectural information that participants gave, acquired and sought through digital media;

3) The participants’ experience in using digital media for project design; and 4) The potential for employing interactive media for communication in the

design process.

Table 4.1: Question numbers and areas of discussion for each of the participant categories

Areas of discussion Architect Engineer Planner Client

A: Participant’s organisation 1 question 1 question 1 question

B: Information exchanged 1 question 1 question 1 question 1 question

C: Design/presentation tools 3 questions 5 questions 4 questions 4 questions

D: Interactive digital media 2 questions 1 question 1 question 1 question

Total number of questions 7 questions 8 questions 6 questions 7 questions

The open-ended questions helped to identify the types of digital media and the ways in which they were used. Gathering participants’ views on the use of digital media informed the investigation of the significant attributes, user interfaces, the feasibility and the potential development of the communication system, being the ultimate objective of this research. The research has also probed into the possibility of using interactive media such as websites or mobile applications in the communication design process. The resulting data guides this research to develop a communication platform, described in the

forthcoming chapters. The researcher had aimed to hold 20 interviews, but three participants were unable to have a face-to-face session. These people were asked to fill out questionnaires with the same questions as the interview and return them by email. Their answers were also useful and included in the data analysis. Some of the interviews were audio-recorded, after obtaining permission from the participants. In some other interviews, notes were taken, as the participants did not want to be recorded. After the interviews, the

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participants were asked to come back to give feedback on the final outcome of this research.

After the interviews were conducted, the data was transcribed and securely saved.