User Interviews: Sophie
User information Sophie is 22 years old. She is French; she is living in Paris suburbs with her parents and her brother. She is an engineering student. She will get his degree at the end of this year. She likes dancing, motorcycles and practicing risking sports (parachute, ski…). She enjoys traveling and meeting new people. She is member of a theater association. Interview protocol (This interview was realized using a system of video conferencing and instant message-You can find here a summary) Here are the principal questions we asked Sophie:
What we learned by the interview? First of all, it was funny to discover that Sophie and I do not have the same definition of a gift. When I asked her whether she know prior the reception of the gift what she will have she declared that for her a surprise will be when someone receives a gift without knowing that he/she will receive one. As she is offering gifts for special events such as birthdays, Christmas and anniversaries- in particular with her boyfriend- in her mind this is never a surprise. She described the gift surprise like being something, a small detail, you mentioned you like in a discussion, and received just in order to make you feel happy. Sometimes again it is just small intentions like offering a dinner, a movie ticket… She admitted that she always try to represent herself being the person she wants to offer something to see if the things she wants to offer is appropriate. Often “you choose something that you liked yourself” because it is so hard guessing what the person will like, she says. I think this is a good point. Another way she uses to guess people needs is to ask relatives of the person which is not a large amount of persons as Sophie is offering gift to a restricted area of persons (family and close friends well known since childhood). She told me the story of the bad experience with a gift she made to her parents. She saved money to pay expensive theater tickets in Paris. Her father wasn’t pleased because to get to the theater was a problem for him (driving in the main city, finding a park place or taking the tube full of people). The problem lies in the fact of finding original gifts. She learned from that unsuccessful experience that she should try to learn/ask, hiding the main reasons, questions regarding the gift she plans to buy. I found surprising the fact that she always receives the same types of gifts and offers the same types of gifts also to persons. For example, she buys for her parents housing’s staff and often received clothes as fashion addict. But it is funny to notice that she hates giving clothes to people because even knowing the size there is some difficulties regarding the colors, sometimes it doesn’t find the person, the shape of the person has changed… Sophie noticed that there are people who like utile gifts (something they can use now or something they need) and people who like original ones. The price is not a consideration that Sophie looks at. She goes in the closest big shop’s area and always find something thanks to the quantity of shops. I used to know people who had an idea and go in several shops in several locations to compare the prices and the features. She experienced several times to offer gifts in common and as we can imagine it demands a certain organization and a good communication between the different persons. What she likes in these kinds of gifts is that there are many ideas and several persons who really well know the person to whom the gift will be offered. |
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