User Interviews: Isabelle
User information Isabelle is a 48 years old teacher. She has two children (18 and 20 years old) and works half-time at school. The other time she spends on keeping the house nice & clean and cooking for her husband and children. In her spare time, she likes jogging, swimming, playing tennis, and reading books. Isabelle is often invited for dinner by friends or relatives (on average once a month). Often, she gives a little gift to the hostess. On birthdays she bestows her children, her mother, her husband, friends, colleagues, and the godchildren-the same persons as on Christmas. She gets gifts from the persons, she bestows and sometimes from her pupils. On average, she bestows 60 gifts per year. Interview protocol What´s your name? Isabelle. How old are you? 48. Tell me a little bit about your family! I live with my husband and my 2 children in a little town near Aachen. My sister died a few years ago and my parents are divorced. Do you bestow gifts? Yes, of course. How many per year? Hmmm-On average 60, I think. To which occasions? Birthdays, passed exams of my children, on Christmas, if I´m invited by friends, childbirths Which people do you make presents? Friends, colleagues, relatives. Are you stressed before Christmas, because of the shopping for the gifts? No. It doesn’t stress me. Do you find always something? Yes, mostly. Sometimes it is difficult to find something for persons, I don´t know very well. Are your friends, children,… sometimes disappointed because of your gifts? No – I don´t hope so. Do you like surprises? Yes I like surprises very much and I like to give surprises. How do you choose the surprises? I look at the wish-lists of the person (if they made a list) and I try to find out, with which gift the person could be happy. I don´t like giving money. Are you happy with the gifts, you receive? Mostly, yes! But sometimes, I receive gifts, which doesn´t suit me. This are mostly persons, which don´t know me well. Do you use the internet? Yes. For which tasks you use it? Weather, vacation planning (hotel critics,…), I search for things for my class, recipes, I write emails with my friends, use the instant messenger to write with my daughter, I search for good new books, shopping, collaboration with other schools. What do you think about a online wish-list as feature in a social network (explained what a social network is & the basic idea)? Funny! Do you would use it (if you have an account in this social network)? I think it is interesting to browse through other peoples wish-lists. So I can view what they like – and it is probably easier to choose a gift. It is interesting-even if I don´t want to buy a gift for this person. What do you think about a user rating for the gifts? Probably, the person who gave the gift would be disappointed, if I give a bad rating for the gift. So I wouldn´t give bad rankings. What do you think about a function that reminds you X weeks before Christmas and tells you, who has gave you a gift for Christmas last year? I know, which persons gave me a gift for Christmas. But I could be interesting to do this with greeting cards. Every year at Christmas I don´t know, who has send me a Christmas card. If the system could remind me, that could be helpful. Is it a problem for you, if other (foreign) people can see your wishes? No-it´s no problem for me. Do you have other ideas of interesting features? Hmm (thinking) – No ideas. Report of interview findings The most interesting thing in this interview was, that Isabelle thought that a reminder function for gifts is superfluous, but could be helpful for greeting cards. That she woulden´t give a bad rating for a gift was intersting, too. |
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