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Online Interviews
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Designing and Conducting Online Interviews to
Investigate Interesting Consumer Phenomena
Thorsten Gruber,
The University of Manchester
Manchester Business School
Isabelle Szmigin
The University of Birmingham
Birmingham Business School
Alexander Reppel
School of Management
Royal Holloway, University of London
Roediger Voss
University of Education Ludwigsburg
Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg
Institut für Bildungsmanagement
*Send correspondence to: Dr. Thorsten Gruber, The University of Manchester, Manchester
Business School, Booth Street West, Manchester M15 6PB, UK, Tel.: +44-(0)161-275 6479
(Email: thorsten.gruber@mbs.ac.uk)
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Abstract
Purpose – This paper thoroughly explains how qualitative researchers can design and conduct
online interviews to investigate interesting consumer phenomena.
Design/Methodology/Approach – A semi-standardized qualitative technique called
laddering was applied successfully to an online environment. Laddering allows researchers to
reach deeper levels of reality and to reveal the reasons behind the reasons. A web survey that
included an opinion leadership scale, filled in by 2,472 people, served as a springboard for
identifying possible participants for the online laddering interviews. 22 online interviews were
conducted with opinion leaders in the specific product field of digital music players such as
Apple’s iPod.
Findings – By conducting online interviews we were able to gather information from an
interesting group of respondents that would have been difficult to contact otherwise. The
whole online interviewing process was convenient for respondents who did not have to leave
their homes and offices for the interviews. In general respondents enjoyed the online
laddering interviewing experience and in particular the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. The
most valued attributes of Apple’s iPod are “control elements” and “design”, which are linked
to values such as hedonism and individuality.
Originality/value – The paper is the first to systematicallydescribe how qualitative
researchers can conduct laddering interviews online. By explaining the online interviewing
process in detail, we dispel criticism that qualitative research reports are often unclear,
ambiguous and unstructured. Based on the detailed description of the online laddering
process, other researchers can use the technique to get deeper insights into interesting
consumer phenomena.
Keywords Qualitative research, Laddering, Internet, Interviews, Consumer research
Paper Type Commentary Paper
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Designing and Conducting Online Interviews to Investigate Interesting Consumer Phenomena
Introduction
Qualitative researchers seek meaning and are particularly interested in the perspective and
standpoint of the people they study (Hammersley, 1992). They want to get a deep
understanding of social phenomena in context and interpret “phenomena in terms of the
meanings people bring to them” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2003, p. 5). Interviewing is one of the
most common and powerful methods which qualitative researchers use to understand other
people (Fontana and Frey, 2003; Bryman, 2004). Interviews can be described as
“conversation with a purpose” (Kahn and Cannell, 1957, p. 149; Dexter, 1970, p. 136;
Burgess, 1984, p. 102), and qualitative researchers use interviews to gather information about
a particular issue or topic. Interviews do not occur unintentionally but are consciously
arranged and follow procedures and rules (Leonard, 2003). Qualitative researchers who use
interviews as data collection tools believe that they can “investigate elements of the social by
asking people to talk, and to gather or construct knowledge by listening to and interpreting
what they say and to how they say it” (Mason, 2002, p. 225).
According to Leonard (2003), traditional face-to-face interviews, however, have several
drawbacks: First of all, personal interviews can be quite laborious to arrange and to conduct.
The transcription of interviews and the subsequent analysis of transcripts are time-consuming
and demanding tasks. The whole interviewing process is also very costly to administer and
interviewers may have to travel long distances to meet their respondents. Interviewees may
also have to be paid for having travelled to the research site and for taking part in the project.
While interviewers should record information in an unbiased way, they may still have
expectations about what interviewees feel or know about the topic, similarly beliefs, based on
respondents’ appearance or background, may have an impact on the quality of the interviews.
Furthermore, interviewers have to be skilful at using the techniques of prompting and probing
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as they could otherwise influence respondents to give a hoped-for answer. Similarly,
interviewees may be influenced by the interviewer’s visible characteristics like age, race,
gender, physical appearance and conduct and may try to give answers they think interviewers
want to hear. We believe that such drawbacks of the traditional interview method could be
reduced significantly in an online environment.
Benefits of conducting online interviews
Although several qualitative researchers have discovered the usefulness of the internet to
design and conduct qualitative research projects and online data collection methods are
increasingly used, authors such as Comley (2002) rightly point out that researchers have been
accepting online qualitative research at a significantly slower pace than online quantitative
research. Similarly, O’Connor and Madge (2003) maintain that the topic of online qualitative
research in general and the issue of conducting qualitative online interviews in particular
should attract more attention. Up to now, the focus in the online qualitative research literature
has been mainly on online focus groups (Bryman, 2004), reflecting the important role and
frequent use of this qualitative research method (e.g. Boddy, 2005; Herington et al., 2005;
Stokes and Bergin, 2006). According to Pincott and Branthwaite (2000, p. 151), however, the
advantages of conducting qualitative research on the internet are “more apparent in online
individual interviews (one-to-one) than in online group discussions”. Interviewers can for
example create rapport more easily during individual online interviews than during online
group discussions. In one-to one interviews, both interviewer and interviewee have equal
status while interviewers play a dominant role in online groups.
Online interviews are also cheaper to conduct than traditional interviews as there are no
travel, venue renting and accommodation expenses. Researchers do not have to tape and
transcribe online interviews as the online chat programmes that are used to conduct interviews
automatically generate interview transcripts, which allow a quicker analysis of data. Further,
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the whole interviewing process may be less stressful and more convenient for respondents as
they can be interviewed at home or at work in a familiar and non-threatening environment.
The anonymous interviewing situation means that respondents are not influenced by the
interviewers’ appearance, tone of voice and body language. Thus, social desirability bias and
especially interviewer/interviewee bias should not occur (Duffy et al., 2005; Miller and
Dickson, 2001).
According to Joinson (2001) respondents also reveal more personal information in
computer-mediated communication than in traditional face-to-face discussions due to visual
anonymity and higher levels of private self-awareness. Similarly, Hanna et al. (2005) found
that respondents are more likely to express their deeper feelings in an online environment than
during traditional interviews. As respondents are also less inhibited online, they are willing to
state their opinions more directly than in a traditional interviewing environment (Tse, 1999;
Pincott and Branthwaite, 2000; Sweet, 2001).
As online interviewees can revise their answers before they send them off, online
responses are grammatically better than statements in face-to-face interviews (Folkman
Curasi, 2001). As the flow of conversion of online interviews, which are conducted in rounds,
is broken into text “chunks” with a time-lag between questions and answers, online interviews
are also more ordered and structured than traditional face-to-face interviews (Chen and
Hinton, 1999).
The Apple iPod phenomenon
Another benefit of online qualitative research is that it allows researchers to sample minority
and professional groups that would otherwise be difficult to contact (Pincott and Branthwaite,
2000; Langer and Beckman, 2005). For example people who spend much of their free time
online may not be willing to have personal face-to-face interviews with researchers but may
be interested in online interviews. Miller and Dickson (2001, p. 146) support this view by
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saying that online qualitative research is appropriate “when the target population is small,
very specialized in its skills, and difficult to find and recruit, and when the issue relates to
high-tech products and services”.
This is especially true for users of Apple’s digital music player “iPod”. Users of the iPod
are an interesting group of consumers as they are highly involved with the brand (Belk and
Tumbat, 2005) and regarded as a consumer subculture (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995).
According to a recent Forrester report (Collingwood, 2005), the iPod accounts for around
three quarters of the digital music player market in the United States. This is an impressive
achievement for a company that introduced the original iPod into a difficult market
environment at the end of 2001. The iPod, was neither the first digital music player, nor
initially compatible with the majority of personal computers, only being able to be used with
Apple’s own Macintosh computers, a platform accounting for less than 4% of US computer
sales (Belk and Tumbat, 2005). Significantly Apple extended the iPod market from the group
of early adopters to the early majority “without diminishing the product’s cool factor” (Olson
et al., 2005, p. 14), those aspects of a product or brand of particular importance to the small
but influential segment of innovators and early adaptors.
We therefore decided to conduct online interviews with iPod users to learn more about the
iPod phenomenon in general and about the preferred attributes of the iPod player in particular.
We believe that our chosen online approach is particularly appropriate for researching the
iPod for a variety of reasons; music can only be downloaded onto the digital music player
through a computer using Apple’s iTunes software, iPod users purchase music through
Apple’s ‘iTunes’ online music store and for this purpose they generally need an internet
connection. Moreover, as stated above, this group of respondents with their particular interest
in high tech products would have been difficult to contact otherwise.
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In the following, we describe how qualitative researchers can design and conduct online
interviews to investigate interesting consumer phenomena such as the Apple iPod. Given the
current lack of knowledge regarding the iPod phenomenon we decided to apply the
established qualitative laddering technique (Reynolds and Gutman, 1988) to an online
environment as it allows researchers to reveal the “reasons behind the reasons” (Gengler et
al., 1999, p. 175) and as it is commonly used in exploratory qualitative phases of research
projects (e.g. Botschen et al., 1999; Devlin et al., 2003; Zanoli and Naspetti, 2002). With the
qualitative laddering technique we aim to get a deeper understanding of the preferred product
attributes of the iPod to reveal underlying consumer benefits of and preferences for this
innovative brand.
The main aim of the paper is to explain the online laddering interviewing process in detail,
as qualitative researchers are often criticised for their unclear and ambiguous research reports.
Difficulties include, not explaining how the research was conducted, why a certain research
method was applied, how respondents were selected, how data was analysed, and conclusions
reached (Bryman, 2004). While qualitative research is less structured and rule driven than
quantitative research, this does not preclude the standardisation of data collection and analysis
such that it is comprehensible to other researchers who may want to continue or replicate the
study. In this connection, Reynolds et al. (2001) point out that the laddering method can be
distinguished from typical qualitative research methods in the following way: the laddering
technique has a definite structure as interviewers use standard probing questions, follow an
explicit agenda, and the questioning flows in much the same way for each interview.
Reynolds et al. (2001) contrast the typical qualitative structure as being shallow and broad
with the results from laddering which are deep and focused. Thus, the laddering method can
be described as a structured qualitative method that leads to deep and focused results. By
explaining the different stages of the online laddering process thoroughly, we hope that fellow
researchers will become interested in using this technique in their research projects.
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The laddering interviewing technique
Laddering interviews attempt to discover the salient meanings that consumers associate with
products, services and behaviours and to reveal so-called means-end chains. The focus is on
the associations in the consumer’s mind between the attributes of products, services or
behaviours, which are the “means”, the consequences of these attributes for the consumer, and
the personal values or beliefs, the “ends”, which are satisfied by the consequences. While the
attributes are the characteristics of a product or service, the consequences are the reasons why
an attribute is important. They are the psychological or physiological aspects which motivate
a customer to use a product or service (Gutman, 1982). Values are a more universal concept
and may be considered as life goals; personal and general consequences individuals are
striving for in their lives (Rokeach, 1973). The linkages between attributes, consequences and
values are what produce the means-end chains (Peter et al., 1999). Consumer knowledge is
assumed to be hierarchically organized in the consumer’s memory spanning different levels of
abstraction (Reynolds et al., 1995); the higher the level of abstraction, the stronger the
connection to the self. Thus a hierarchy exists with attributes (low level of abstraction) as less
relevant to the self than consequences (mid level of abstraction) and values being of most
relevance (high level of abstraction) (Olson and Reynolds, 1983).
The means-end approach has its roots in Kelly’s Personal Construct Psychology
(1991/1955). According to Kelly, individuals have their own view of the world and are
probably capable of reflecting on and controlling their behaviour by creating rules or
developing theories. Similar to Kelly’s approach, a means-end researcher follows the “person-
as-scientist” analogy and believes “that consumers’ means-end chains represent their personal
theories of how aspects of the physical world relate to their lives” (Gengler et al., 1995, p.
254).
The laddering technique emerged in the clinical psychology area introduced by Dennis
Hinkle (1965) to model the concepts and beliefs of people. In a market research context, the
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technique was first used for product or brand positioning issues and to link the consumer’s
product knowledge to his/her self-knowledge (Gutman, 1982; Olson and Reynolds, 1983).
More recently, the laddering technique, however, has also been applied to a range of areas
including sales management (e.g. Botschen et al., 1999; Deeter-Schmelz et al., 2002;
Reynolds et al., 2001), and strategic marketing (e.g. Norton and Reynolds, 2001; Reynolds
and Rochon, 2001), and consumer behaviour (e.g. Bagozzi and Dabholkar, 1994; Pieters et
al., 1995; Pieters et al., 1998; Vriens and Hofstede, 2000; Wansink, 2000, 2003). Laddering is
normally done in person and involves semi-standardized in-depth interviews, where
respondents are restricted as little as possible in their natural flow of speech
All laddering interviews consist of an elicitation and laddering stage (Grunert and Grunert,
1995). Initially an elicitation stage which may use techniques such as triadic sorting, direct
elicitation or free sorting to derive preference based distinction criteria is undertaken. Criteria
thus derived act as the starting point for the laddering probes, which should eventually
uncover attribute-consequence-value chains. This is achieved through repeatedly asking
questions as to why an attribute/consequence/value is important to the respondent with the
answer serving as the starting point for the next question. Interviewers use these probe
questions to reveal attribute-consequence-value chains by taking the subject up a so called
“ladder of abstraction” (hence the name “laddering”), starting with concrete attributes and
ending with abstract values. The laddering process continues until the respondent gives either
circular answers, is incapable or reluctant to answer or reaches a terminal value (Claeys et al.,
1995).The following figure illustrates such a ladder of abstraction:
“Take in figure 1”
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Conducting laddering interviews online
Laddering interviews can be conducted online in the form of text-, audio- or video-chats. As
we preferred not to transcribe our laddering interviews manually, we decided not to use
videographic methods (Belk and Kozinets, 2005)
but to conduct text based online laddering
interviews using instant messenger software such as AIM or MSN Messenger that produce
transcripts automatically. Text-based online chats are conducted in rounds: After some
introductory words (thanking the respondent for taking part in the interview, introducing
oneself and the aim of the research project, and assuring anonymity and confidentiality) the
interviewer can start the online laddering interview by typing the first question in a small text
box of the chat software. By clicking a “send button”, the question is immediately sent to the
interviewee who can read the question in a larger text box. The interviewee can then send an
answer to the interviewer the same way. The next section describes how we used a
quantitative web survey to draw our sample of respondents for the online laddering
interviews.
The research process – Identification of participants
Grunert and Grunert (1995) suggest that researchers should collect ladders that are from a
homogeneous group of respondents. A suitable approach for identifying an appropriate group
of homogeneous respondents is the selection of opinion leaders. Because opinion leaders
exercise informal influence upon other peoples’ behaviours and attitudes through product-
related conversations (Goldsmith and De Witt, 2003), they are considered attractive targets
for marketing communication (Stern and Gould, 1988), as well as for the adoption and
diffusion of newly developed products (Chan and Misra, 1990). Providing information or
advice perceived as more credible than mass advertising, opinion leaders can informally
influence others’ attitudes and behaviours (Stern and Gould, 1988). Opinion leaders are
particularly important for the success of innovative products, as when they are among the
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early adopters themselves, they pass on important information to opinion seekers (Flynn et
al., 1996). We also believed that opinion leaders would be highly motivated and willing to
invest sufficient time for taking part in our online interviews.
Concerning minimum sample size, Reynolds et al. (2001) recommend that, as a rule of
thumb, researchers should interview at least 20 respondents. This sample size could already
give interviewers a significant understanding of the main attributes, consequences, and values
of products, services or people. Thus, we decided to draw our sample of at least 20
respondents for the online laddering interviews from a group of opinion leaders in the specific
product field of digital music players such as Apple’s iPod.
Following Creswell (2003, p. 4) who believes that the idea of applying only quantitative
or qualitative methods “falls short of the major approaches being used today in the social and
human sciences”, we decided to employ a quantitative web survey to identify suitable
respondents for the following qualitative laddering interviews. The web survey served “as a
springboard for identifying possible participants” (Bryman, 2004, p. 475).
During May 2005, the three German researchers of this project invited German-speaking
users of the Apple iPod music player to fill in our web survey. For this purpose, we posted
invitations to fill in our survey on several websites that iPod users frequently visit such as
www.macnews.de and we advertised in the search results of the German Google site
(www.google.de). The purpose was to make potential respondents aware of the website we
created for this research project (www.ipodstudies.com) that hosted the questionnaire. The
web survey included an opinion leadership scale that was originally constructed by Flynn et
al. (1996) consisting of six items to identify the desired homogeneous group of opinion
leaders. Our scale was adjusted by including a ‘no answer’ option to exclude those
participants who would otherwise only consider the end points of the scale. We also scaled
the six items from 1 to 5, with a higher number meaning stronger agreement. The Cronbach’s
alpha reliability coefficient for our opinion leadership scale was .73.
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The web survey also covered the following topics: satisfaction with the iPod in general
and with its product attributes in particular (e.g. design, usability etc.), importance of iPod
product attributes, and the reasons for choosing the iPod. Respondents were also asked how
much time they would spend daily listening to music and for which music groups Apple
should launch a new iPod special edition. We also included a question concerning usage of
instant messenger software (e.g. iChat, AIM, MSN Messenger, ICQ). Finally, we asked
respondents whether they would be interested in being contacted for another research project.
For this purpose they had to give us a valid email address. However, we also gave
respondents the possibility of creating an anonymous e-mail for the research project purpose
only.
Cobanoglu and Cobanoglu (2003) suggest that researchers using web surveys should use
incentives to achieve good response rates. They recommend that researchers should offer a
small prize to all respondents and also enter them into a raffle for a bigger prize. Following
Cobanoglu and Cobanoglu, all respondents who filled in the web survey could download two
exclusive chapters (78 pages in total) of an iPod book. They were also included in a draw for
prizes such as a computer, audio books, sound systems, and personalised protective covers for
the iPod.
“Take in figure 2”
Figure 1 shows that a total of 2,472 people participated in our web survey and 2,178 (88% out
of 2,472) of them provided complete answers to the opinion leadership scale. From the 317
respondents that scored highest on this scale, 273 (86% out of 317) agreed to be contacted for
a further study and 198 of them were not only opinion leaders but also owners of an iPod and
regular users of instant messenger software. From this group we randomly chose 85
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respondents for the online laddering interviews, the remaining respondents were invited for
another research project.
For our online interviews, we then contacted respondents by email and thanked them for
having taken part in the web survey and for being interested in the new research project. We
then informed them that this new project was concerned with identifying the attributes of the
iPod that they valued the most. Further, we told respondents that we were particularly
interested in their views as opinion leaders with regard to digital music players. We then
informed them that the new project would be conducted in the form of an online interview
that would last for approx. 60 minutes. We also promised participants an issue of an iPod
magazine and a protective cover for their iPod as a further reward for taking part in the
research study.
Respondents were able to schedule their own interview appointment via our homepage.
For this purpose we used an online appointment scheduling software that allowed respondents
not only to view and edit their own appointments online but also to change or cancel
appointments if necessary. Participants had to provide the following information: email
address, chat name, date and time of online interview and the name of the preferred chat
software (iChat, AIM, MSN Messenger, ICQ etc.).
We originally planned to conduct as many interviews as possible with the 85 potential
respondents and to analyse the results after every ten interviews. After twenty interviews, it
was evident that our categories had reached theoretical saturation, i.e. no new or relevant data
concerning categories was emerging and the categories and linkages between categories were
well-established (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). We therefore decided that no additional
interviews were necessary, so the laddering process was completed with 22 interviews.
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The online laddering interviewing process
In the following, the online laddering interviewing process is explained thoroughly. In order
to understand the laddering process better we divided it into three stages: a pre-laddering
interview phase, an online laddering interview phase, and a post-online laddering interview
phase.
The pre-online laddering interview phase
Based on the information gathered from the web survey, we prepared for all respondents
“participation cards”, which were information sheets containing e-mail addresses, age, and
gender of the respondents, their current iPod models, favoured music groups, and
recommended new iPod special editions, preferred circumstances for using the iPod, and the
time they spend daily listening to music in general and using their iPod in particular. The day
before an online interview took place, we reminded participants by e-mail and told them that
we were looking forward to meeting them online. In this e-mail we also mentioned the
scheduled interview appointment, the chat name of the interviewer, and the name of the chat
software that the respondent selected. This “reminder” email was necessary to make sure that
all respondents knew who would contact them the next day.
Before an online laddering interview started, we studied the respondent’s participation
card to be better prepared for the interview. We then knew for example which music group
the interviewee favoured and how much time he or she spends every day with the iPod. We
also opened a word document with prepared standardised text modules such as “My name
is...” for the opening of each interview and modules such as “Please follow the following link
to download your issue of the iPod magazine” for the ending of the interview to fasten the
whole process. As soon as respondents were online and ready for the online interview, we
immediately contacted them by typing “Hello Mr/Ms ...” in a small text box of the chat
software. By clicking a “send button”, our message was immediately sent to the interviewees
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who could read it in a larger text box. Interviewees could then send an answer back to us the
same way. We then thanked respondents for taking part in the interview and introduced
ourselves and the aim of the research project. Following that, we promised all interviewees
that we would use the information for research purposes only, it would not be used
commercially, and we assured confidentiality.
Coolen and Hoekstra (2001) suggest that interviewers conducting laddering interviews
should create a non-threatening interview environment so that respondents can talk freely
about their motivations. Respondents should get the impression that their opinion is important
and that there are no right or wrong answers. The interviewer should only act as a facilitator
“who has to keep the respondent talking” (Coolen and Hoekstra 2001, p. 296). Thus, we
assured respondents that they could not give any wrong answers, that we would not judge
their answers, and that they could use colloquial language or even slang to tell their stories.
We also told them that we would be particularly interested in their expert opinions on this
topic.
Reynolds et al. (2001) recommend that interviewers should start with warm-up questions
to put interviewees at ease before the actual laddering interview begins, this we did at the
beginning of each interview. As our study combines a quantitative web survey with the
qualitative laddering process, we were able to refer to information from the initial
questionnaire such as respondent’s answers to questions like “For which music group or
person should Apple introduce an iPod special edition?” and “When and in what
circumstances do you like to use your iPod the most?” The idea behind this ‘small-talk’ was
to break the ice and create rapport so that respondents felt comfortable and were prepared for
the following interview. By having this informal chat, we not only tried to establish a
relationship with the respondents and to encourage them to take part in the interview but we
also prepared ourselves for the interview through this ‘warm up’.
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The online laddering interview phase
After the warm up session, the actual laddering interviewing process began which consisted
of two stages: elicitation of attributes and the laddering process. Researchers use elicitation
techniques (e.g. triadic sorting, free sorting, direct elicitation, ranking and picking) to derive
criteria that can discriminate between products or services or behaviours. Respondents
normally have to perform a sorting or ranking task so that a preference-based distinction can
be revealed. Alternatively, interviewers may directly ask respondents which attributes or
characteristics are of relevance for them. Bech-Larsen and Nielsen (1999) who compared five
techniques for elicitation of attributes found that “complex methods like triadic sorting are
more time-consuming, and that they do not in any way outperform the less complex free
sorting technique” (p.338-339). Therefore, simple techniques like direct questioning and
ranking are sufficient to elicit salient attributes or characteristics. Thus, we directly asked all
22 interviewees to tell us three or four attributes of the iPod that would be of relevance for
them and that distinguish the iPod from its competitors.
In the second stage, the derived criteria from stage 1 were the starting point for the
laddering probes which should uncover the complete means-end structure. For this, we began
with the attribute of the iPod that respondents considered to be the most important and asked:
”Why is attribute xyz important to you?” The answer to this question served as the starting
point for further questioning. The following table illustrates an extract from one online
interview:
“Take in table I”
We continued with the laddering process until respondents gave either circular answers, were
incapable or reluctant to answer or reached the value level. As the laddering interview is a
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semi-structured interview it allows for flexibility and interviewees occasionally mentioned
new attributes which we also addressed during the interview.
Although all respondents were able to climb the ladder of abstraction, which means that
all interviewees were capable of associating attributes with consequences and consequences
with values, they sometimes had difficulties with climbing the ladder of abstraction any
further during the interview. In these cases, we applied several of the techniques
recommended by Reynolds and Gutman (1988) to facilitate the interview. For example, we
asked them how they would feel if the iPod was not easy to use or if the design was not
attractive. We also asked respondents to think back in time to their feelings when they used
their iPod. We occasionally repeated what respondents had just written to check if we had
understood the respondents’ answers correctly.
If interviewees did not give sufficient answers, we employed probes to gather additional
and/or more detailed information. We asked for example “Could you please give me more
information about...”. We also asked respondents to clarify certain answers, particularly if
their responses were ambiguous. In addition, we related respondents’ answers to previous
answers and asked interviewees if these connections were valid. While applying these
techniques, we tried not to push respondents up the ladder of abstraction but to accompany
them on their way up the ladder. It was important for us to find a balance between helping
respondents and avoiding influencing their answers.
It was important to maintain rapport during the interview. This can be accompolished by
personalising the encounter, which is possible to achieve by adapting interpersonally and
“altering various interpersonal communication elements (e.g. tone of voice, vocabulary,
gestures) to meet what they perceive to be the unique needs of individual consumers”
(Bettencourt and Gwinner 1996, p. 3). We attempted to adapt interpersonally in an online
environment by using language that was comprehendible and relevant to our respondents.
Further, if interviewees frequently used emoticons to communicate their feelings, we also
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used them. If interviewees appeared to have lots of time and were chatty, we also took our
time. Similarly, if interviewees seemed to be in a rush, we tried to complete the laddering
process as quickly as possible. We believe that a personal connection can only develop online
if both exchange partners indicate a genuine interest in the other person, which means that
both parties actively participate and exchange information during the online encounter. We
therefore tried to listen as actively as possible to what respondents were writing and attempted
to remain focused and pay attention during the entire interviews.
The post-online laddering interview phase
After each interview, we thanked respondents again for their participation in the interview and
for giving up their time. We then gave them a web address to download the promised issue of
the iPod magazine and we informed respondents that we could send them the study results if
interested. Finally, we asked them to give us a delivery address to ship the iPod protective
cover and to visit another website to fill in a feedback form.
13 respondents gave us constructive feedback. They particularly enjoyed the friendliness
of the interviewers, the relaxed atmosphere, and the interesting and well-founded questions.
They also liked the idea of having a personalised interview in a normally impersonal online
environment and preferred it to having a telephone or face-to-face interview. Respondents
also enjoyed the fact that the online interview did not focus on the preferred attributes of iPod
solely but was concerned with broader topics to get a deeper understanding of the iPod
phenomenon. Only two respondents mentioned drawbacks of the online interviewing
experience and they criticised the length of the interview itself and the long interval between
questions and answers. Respondents also suggested that interviewers should be quicker typists
and that the whole interview should be shorter. Respondents also asked to be informed at the
beginning of the chat how long the interview would take and what issues would be discussed.
Our online laddering interviews lasted between 50 and 140 minutes in comparison to
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traditional laddering interviews that normally last between 45 to 120 minutes (Reynolds et al.,
2001).
Finally, respondents were asked to mark the online laddering interviewing experience
according to a 6 point scale running from 1 (very satisfactory) to 6 (very unsatisfactory). The
overall average grade was 1.6 (very good), which indicates that respondents genuinely
enjoyed the online laddering interviewing experience.
Data analysis and results
As the main aim of this paper is to explain thoroughly the process of how to design and
conduct qualitative online interviews to investigate interesting consumer phenomena, we will
only briefly describe the analysis of the laddering data and the research findings.
We used the software program LADDERMAP (Gengler and Reynolds, 1993) to content
analyse the ladders from the online interviews. Coding was an iterative exercise of recoding
data, splitting, combining categories, generating new or dropping existing categories. Codes
for individual means-end chains were aggregated and expressed in an implications matrix
which details the associations between the constructs. The implications matrix shows the
number of times one code leads to another. Finally, a graphical representation of the
aggregate chains was presented in a Hierarchical Value Map (HVM). The map consists of
nodes, which stand for the most important attributes/consequences/values and lines, which
represent the linkages between the concepts. The following figure illustrates the HVM based
on the online laddering interviews
“Take in figure 3”
The size of the circle stands for the frequency respondents brought up a certain concept. Thus,
the most important attributes identified are “control elements”, which includes the iPod’s
Online Interviews
20
‘click wheel’ control and the menu navigation, and “design”. The thickness of the line that
links concepts represents the relative frequency of association between the concepts of
meaning. Thus, the attribute “control elements” is for example strongly linked with the
consequence “ease of use” and the value “feeling good”. The iPod’s design satisfies user’s
desire for beauty and helps them to feel individual. Respondents also value the iPod’s good
sound quality that allows them to enjoy music and to relax. The iPod’s ease of use and
simplicity also helps users relax and enjoy life and have fun (“hedonism”). In addition, users
can then save time, which allows them to devote attention to other issues (“concentrate on
other issues”). Further, the iPod’s reliability creates a feeling of security.
Limitations of online laddering interviewing
There are several limitations to conducting online laddering interviews which researchers
interested in the research method should consider. A major disadvantage of text based online
laddering interviews is the loss of all non-verbal communication cues making it difficult for
interviewers to create rapport (Chen and Hinton, 1999; Folkman Curasi, 2001; O’Connor and
Madge, 2003) and such rapport is important to establish a relationship with respondents who
are then willing to share information (Bryman, 2004). Interviewers cannot receive and
interpret respondents’ non-verbal cues (body language, facial expressions, promimics) and
they also cannot send non-verbal cues (e.g. head nodding, murmurs of approval, and smiling)
to assure respondents that listening has occurred and to achieve rapport. In an online
environment, interviewers are limited to use of so called “emoticons” such as ☺ to
communicate friendliness or other responses but they can also make some online introductory
small talk at the beginning of the interview to put respondents at ease.
Researchers conducting online laddering interviewers are not able to observe if
respondents are losing interest in the conversation or if they are annoyed or unclear about a
particular question. Interviewers in an online environment cannot be sure whether their
Online Interviews
21
respondents remain focused all the time during the interview or become distracted (Comley,
2002; O’Connor and Madge, 2003) and so it may be difficult for researchers to control the
success of online interviews (Folkman Curasi, 2001).
Online laddering interviews require motivated respondents who have to invest time and
money for an online interview. These interviews are also physically more demanding than
traditional face-to-face interviews as respondents continuously have to type, look at a
computer monitor, and think about their answers before typing (Chen and Hinton, 1999;
O’Connor and Madge, 2003). Therefore online laddering interviews may not be suitable for
respondents who do not possess good typing skills as they may feel under constant time
pressure to give quick answers and may decide to shorten answers. Similarly, interviewers
need to type quickly or work together with a second interviewer (Sweet 2001; O’Connor and
Madge, 2003) to ensure respondents do not have to wait too long for the next question to
appear. These problems may be of particular relevance for certain respondents who are not
used to an online environment or have difficulty typing. Higher incentives may be used to
compensate for some of the issues discussed above (Tse, 1999) but clearly online interviews
will not suite all respondents.
Researchers using the laddering technique should also be aware of the fact that departures
from the “ideal” laddering interview exist (Grunert and Grunert (1995). Some respondents
may not always give simple answers to the standard laddering probe ”Why is attribute/
consequence/value xyz important to you?” but tell little stories (The last time I went to
England I found…, and I met, and then etc.), add details, or jump around from one category to
another. Some other respondents may be unable to climb the ladder of abstraction any higher
even if they are only at the attribute or consequences level. These behaviours raise a number
of issues for the interviewer. Should they press the respondent to give an additional answer?
When should they stop probing? This is one of the most difficult aspects of conducting
laddering interviews as it is not always clear for the interviewer when to stop the laddering
Online Interviews
22
process. Ultimately interviewers have to find a balance between helping respondents to climb
up the ladder while avoiding influencing their answers.
Finally, all personal construct approaches depend on the respondents’ willingness and
ability to reflect on their knowledge, reveal their individuality, and verbalize their
experiences. Banister et al. (1994), however, believe that respondents may have difficulties
with verbalizing their experiences and to reflect on their attitudes and behaviors. In this
connection, Veludo-de-Oliveira et al. (2006, p. 303) suggest that interviewers should ask
respondents “to give examples and to make analogies. It will help them to go up to different
levels of abstraction”.
Conclusion
This paper has shown how the established laddering interviewing technique can be applied
successfully to an online environment. Online laddering interviews allow an inexpensive and
fast collection of laddering data. There is no need to tape and transcribe interviews as the
online chat software automatically generates interview transcripts, which allows a quick data
analysis. Further, online interviews enable interviewers to capture all provided information
and to follow each elicited attribute even if respondents mentioned several aspects at the same
time.
By using an initial web survey, we were not only able to sample a homogeneous and
motivated group of respondents for the following online laddering interviews but also to
prepare “participation cards”. These cards contained important information about participants
that enabled interviewers to create rapport and to put them at ease at the beginning of each
interview.
Moreover, by conducting online interviews we were able to gather information from an
interesting group of respondents that would have been difficult to contact otherwise. We had
online interviews with politicians, professors, musicians, students, actors, and entrepreneurs.
Online Interviews
23
All interviewees had one thing in common; they were all opinion leaders and owners of an
iPod and therefore represented a homogeneous group.
The whole online interviewing process was convenient for respondents who did not have
to leave their homes and offices for the interviews. In addition, neither the appearance of the
interviewers nor their tone of voice or body language influenced respondents’ answers due to
the faceless interviewing situation. Finally, respondents gave us very positive feedback. They
enjoyed the online laddering interviewing experience in general and the relaxed and friendly
atmosphere in particular. Our experience of conducting online interviews has also revealed
some of the difficulties of this type of research and we suggest that it may only be successful
with certain types of respondents and also requires particular skills of the interviewers.
After having explained in detail how laddering interviews can be conducted online we
hope that fellow researchers develop further studies that use online laddering to investigate
interesting consumer phenomena.
Online Interviews
24
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Figures
Attributes
iPod’s sound quality
Consequences
I can relax
Values
I feel good
and enjoy life
Figure 1. Example for a ladder of abstraction
2,178 respondents answered opinion leadership
scale completely
2,472 respondents filled in the web survey
317 respondents scored highest on the leadership scale
273 respondents agreed to be contacted for
a further study
198 respondents owned an iPod and
used instant messenger software
22 online
laddering
interviews
85 respondents for the
online laddering
interviews
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32
Figure 2. Participants for online laddering interviews identified through a web survey
Figure 3. HVM of online laddering interviews (Attributes=Dark, Consequences=Medium and
Values=Light)
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33
Tables
Interviewer: “Why is it important that the iPod has a scroll-wheel?”
Respondent: “The scroll-wheel is brilliant. I can easily navigate through my song lists”
Interviewer: “Why is it important that the iPod is easy to use?”
Respondent: “It allows me to quickly access my favoured songs”
Interviewer: “Why do want to access your songs quickly?”
Respondent: “I just don’t want to waste my time.
Interviewer: “And why do you prefer not to waste your time?”
Respondent: “There are so many things that I have to do throughout the day. I have a really
stressful job so I really do not want to spend hours on searching songs on my music player”
Interviewer: “I understand. What do you want to do instead?”
Respondent: You see, I normally use my iPod after work, especially for jogging or so. I just
want to relax and enjoy music and the last thing I want is a music player that is difficult to
use.
Interviewer: Ok
....
Table I. Extract from an online laddering interview
