How Central Location Intercept Interviews Work

In central location intercept interviews, you randomly invite people who are representative of your intended audience to respond to your materials. Companies that specialize in this kind of testing have information on what kinds of people you are likely to find in different locations. Also, they screen potential respondents to make sure they will fit your criteria. Those who pass the screening may be asked to participate in an interview at that time, or to come back at a later time for an impromptu focus group.

• Time required. Since you are interrupting people in the course of their errands, the interviews tend to be relatively brief—maybe 15 to 20 minutes. To minimize the time required, you may want to use a structured questionnaire with closed-ended questions. However, the interview does not have to be so structured; you can also ask open-ended questions and use visual aids. But keep in mind that open-ended questions may take significantly more time; the respondent needs more time to answer and the interviewer needs more time to record the response. If you need this kind of information, consider offering an incentive of some kind.
• Number of participants. Depending on your needs, you may be interviewing up to 50 people, and possibly more if you want to separate out responses from different subgroups, such as minority populations. Since you have to pay the company for each respondent it recruits, you may want to limit your sample. The key is to hear from enough people to get a clear direction about what you need to do.

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