It was an interesting experience for me, as I'd never taken part in an interview using instant messaging in this way. On the positive side, the nature of the tool meant that I had plenty of time to consider, spell and construct my responses. And of course there was a complete transcript available for the researcher at the end of it (screengrab above). But on the negative side it was a truly strange experience, because I got no visual feedback at all from the interviewer. She intentionally asked very open questions, and then left me to type...whenever I asked her if I was answering the way she expected she said I could answer however I liked, and with no encouraging nods or smiles I have no idea whether I was on the right track at all! I found myself looking at her little icon on the chat screen as that was all I had to go on. In fact the interview took 2 hours rather than the 45 mins she had anticipated.
I spoke to my colleagues about this, and when I mentioned the lack of feedback Adam told me about The Modality Principle. It basically says that:
"items presented both visually and verbally are better remembered"I think this holds true even for an interview. I needed those visual clues to help the verbal stuff flow. We've seen the same thing with academic podcasts - when converted to video with a talking head it makes the material so much more engaging than pure audio.
Of course you may have valid reasons for wanting your interviewee to feel uncomfortable and have no guidance...in which case stick with the IM!
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