Preparing a list of interview questions can help you in a number of ways. It lets the engineer know that you have given thought to the interview and that you value his or her time. The engineer is more will-ing to answer questions carefully knowwill-ing that the questions were carefully preplanned.
A written list also helps you keep control of the interview. Often, the interviewee will answer only the first few questions in order before unwit-tingly jumping ahead to a later topic, or going on a tangent that brings other questions to mind. Your written list gives you a structure you can refer to when you need to bring the engineer back to the questions you want answered.
A questions list can make the job of writing easier. You can arrange your questions in the topical order you plan to use for your document. It only follows that you’ll ask the questions, and write the answers to them, in that order. Later, when you write your document, you can do so with-out having to jump back and forth through your notes. The information is already in the order you intended to use.
Write down your interview questions. Write more questions than you can ask in the time allotted. That way, you can be sure you’ll take full advan-tage of the engineer’s time. You won’t have to cut the interview short because you ran out of questions (as I did in my first-ever interview).
CHOOSE QUESTIONS THAT WORK
I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.
Just about every English-speaking journalist has been taught this Rud-yard Kipling verse. It summarizes the basic questions journalists must ask in almost every interview. These questions apply for technical writers, too.
To call these questions “serving men” is apt, because they serve you in any interview situation, even when you don’t know much about a sub-ject. If you’ve been unable to find out much background information, or if a product is totally new, you can still ask the engineer:
• What is the purpose of the product?
• Why would the customer want it?
• When will it be put on the market?
• How does it work?
• Where can I see a working prototype?
• Who is the customer?
ORDER QUESTIONS LOGICALLY
Arrange your questions in some logical order. As suggested earlier, you can arrange your questions to match the order of information in the doc-ument you’re writing. Another arrangement you might choose is the order of information in an existing document, such as the product speci-fication. Often the engineer you interview is the author of the product specification. In this case, use sticky notes to keep track of questions on the specification. During the interview you can turn to the pages with the notes on them and ask your questions, perhaps quoting the passages you’re not sure about.
A third way to arrange questions is to move from general questions to more specific ones. Journalists call this a “funnel” sequence: moving from more “open” (general) to more “closed” (specific) questions. When you move from general to specific questions, the engineer has a better chance of following your train of thought and perhaps providing addi-tional information that you hadn’t thought to ask for. You begin with your “What is the product’s purpose?”; then proceed through more and more tightly defined questions. Finally ask those questions that can have only one specific answer. For example, “What baud rates does the modem support?”
Group specific questions by subject. In other words, don’t ask a ques-tion about a particular hose, then one about the release date for the prod-uct, and then another question about a hose. Move methodically from subject to subject.
Move methodically within each subject as well. For example, move from general to more specific questions, or ask questions chronologically.
This doesn’t mean the interview will tightly follow your chosen order, nor should it. But by grouping your questions logically, you will keep track of them easily and think more clearly about the information you need.
You will most likely have to skip around during part of the interview, asking questions out of order. So number your written questions in advance. Then place a check mark next to each one as it’s answered. That way, you can glance at your list and know which questions remain.
PHRASE QUESTIONS CLEARLY
Make sure you phrase your questions clearly and in detail. That way, the engineer will understand each question and not have to ask you to repeat or explain it. This means including background information.
Let’s take a real example. To research an index generator—a com-puter program that makes an index for a document—you need to find out how the user includes terms in the index. You might ask the engineer,
“Does the user need to type a list of terms?”
The engineer, with much on his or her mind, might not know exactly what you’re talking about. Perhaps the user needs to type sev-eral lists of terms—some to include in the index, some to exclude, etc.
Perhaps the user will not type any list at all, but will highlight terms directly in the computer version of the document. If the engineer knows the latter to be the case, he or she won’t understand your question immediately. The engineer will have to pause to figure out what it is you really want to know.
Besides being vague, this question is also an example of a yes/no question: “Does the user need to type a list of terms?” The engineer might well say no.
The ideal interview question gets the engineer talking—in detail. It cannot be dismissed with a simple yes or no, which gives you very little information.
A clearer, more specific question about the index generator might include some introductory comments: “This software generates an index for a document. But I don’t quite understand how the user tells the soft-ware which terms to index. Would you explain how the user does this?”
The introductory remark places the engineer right where you are. Your ensuing question lets the engineer know exactly the kind of information you want.
Besides phrasing questions clearly, make sure to write them clearly.
This may seem a trivial point now, but it won’t seem that way during the interview. There’s nothing more annoying than squinting at your list of questions during a hard-to-arrange interview and wondering what on earth you meant by a particular scribble. Write your questions in your best handwriting or type them.
Basically, you are going to ask the engineer all the questions about the product that you haven’t been able to answer elsewhere. Sometimes, you won’t have answers for some of the simplest, most mundane questions and you’ll be stuck asking the engineer. This brings up a critical point. Whether fresh out of school or very experienced, a technical writer always has to be willing to risk looking stupid. As a Chinese proverb says, “He who asks is a fool for five minutes. He who does not is a fool forever.”
Sometimes the only way to find something out is to ask the expert.
And no matter how long you’re at it, there’ll always be some term or con-cept you don’t know, particularly in complex, rapidly evolving technolo-gies. You will have to hear the incredulous “You mean you don’t know what a supergizmokaffoble is?” and just hang tough. Take it on the chin, as the saying goes. If you fail to ask about the obvious, you might end up omitting it from your document.
CHECKLIST 8–1. PREPARING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
The following checklist summarizes the tips discussed in this section.
You can use it as a checklist when you prepare questions for an interview.
• Choose an order for your questions.
• Move from general to more specific questions.
• Group questions by subject.
• Phrase questions clearly.
• Ask specific questions, aimed at getting the kind of answer you need.
• Avoid yes/no questions.
• Number your questions.
• Use clear handwriting or type your questions.
• Don’t be afraid to ask the obvious or to appear stupid.