During the study, participants were asked semi-structured interview questions aimed at assessing their process of engaging with open source communities during design activities. The questions explored context, knowledge, expertise, inspiration, and constraints within information gathering and design processes [1]
[1] C. Eckert and M. Stacey, “Sources of inspiration: a language of design,” Design Studies, vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 523–538, Sep. 2000.
- Could you give me an overview of your experiences and expertise as a designer?
- Could you talk about the importance of design information in your work?
- Could you talk about some specific instances where you have used design information in the past?
- What types of design information do you currently use?
- How similar are design discussions across different projects?
- What if anything, is missing from these design discussions?
- Who are the stakeholders and where do you believe insight about the design is generated?
- When you look at design information coming from different sources, what factors determine the quality of that information?
- How do you think we can measure design success across projects?
- Are there types of design information that you believe are universally used by designers?
The interviews were conducted in a semi-structured conversational manner. The questions were modified to target the specific design work being undertaken. The interviews were conducted by a context expert to ensure that the questions and responses were correctly understood. Additional questions were added to provide context specific insight and were reported back to the designers.