For the primary research, I started by talking to someone close to me without any script. I just went with the flow to understand what questions naturally popped up when talking about gifting and the gifting experience using Apps / Websites. I could do this because it was someone close to me, and they were willing to spare more time.
With that, I would have a better idea of what questions to ask and how to structure them. Here is how the conversation flowed:
Hi XYZ, how are you today?
The reason for meeting today is to understand better how people go about buying gifts.
Are you comfortable answering a few questions regarding your thoughts and experience around gifting?
I want to let you know beforehand that our conversation will be recorded. This is so that I can go back and listen to it if I missed something. Is that ok with you?
Please don't hesitate to give negative feedback/review about anything we discuss today.
| Question | non-leading ? | open ended? |
|---|---|---|
| How do you feel about buying gifts? | yes | yes |
| How often do you buy gifts for (friends/family)? | yes | yes |
| Can you recall a time when you had to shop for a gift? — when was this? | yes | yes |
| Do you remember why you bought this gift? | yes | yes |
| Where did you go to look for gifts at the time? | yes | yes |
| Why did you go there? | ||
| How was your experience? Did you find a gift to buy there? | ||
| — (yes) | ||
| — (no) What did you do next? REPEAT this section till you reach the store that they bought the gift from | yes | yes |
| What, if any improvements would you suggest? | yes | yes |
| (If prev was offline) | ||
| Have you tried any online stores to buy gifts? | ||
| — Can you tell me more about it? | yes | yes |
| What gift did you buy? | yes | yes |
| Why did you choose that gift? | yes | yes |
| When did you shop for the gift relative to the event date? | yes | yes |
| Based on user’s experience, we can ask them: | ||
| How would your experience change if your friend had published a wishlist? | yes | yes |
| Have you used any e-commerce wishlists? | yes | yes |
| Would you publish a public wishlist? | ||
| — why/ why not? | yes | yes |
| How would you feel if a friend gifts you something you didn't need? | yes | yes |
| Would you ever buy a gift after the event? | ||
| — why/ why not? | yes | yes |