I also share the tag cloud done based on the "key attributes" of the concept analyses. Most of the terms are included in the white paper.

I have been running an activity of authoring a "UX White Paper" that aims to explain the  core concepts of UX. It is based on UX Concept Analyses collected from 27 UX professionals, including some well-known researchers (Cockton, Hassenzahl, Höök, Mahlke, McClelland, Tractinsky). The White Paper will be finalized in a Dagstuhl seminar on September 13-15, 2010.

The first draft of the White Paper was sent to the seminar participants for commenting. I share this version also here, but please do not distribute it further (it's a draft).

Now that you have started the interviews, I need to remind you about the security aspects of dealing with the confidential materials.

In the NDA, you have agreed to keep the information within the project team, which means that the information must not leak. You need to ensure to keep the audio files and documents in such a place that no outsiders cannot access them. Please avoid printing the materials, since you cannot leave the papers to places where other people can access them, and need to verify that the papers are properly destroyed (not thrown to trash unshredded). Also, remove the files as soon as you do not need them, but first send them to me for longer-term storing.

There is a long list of security requirements that I could share with you, but I hope this short guidance is enough to remind to keep confidential information secure. Thanks!

       Virpi

I have now contacted 4 other interviewee candidates, with a slightly clarified invitation text (below). With most managers, it is quite impossible to get 2 hours of their time to this interview, so we should ask either 1 or 1.5 hours. Lutz, I added your taik.fi address as the contact; I hope it still works?

See you tomorrow!

       Virpi

------------

<I added a short personalized invitation here, mentioning also the potential benefit for the interviewee's team.>

User Experience (UX) Tools project is a winner of Nokia's open call for research projects. It is funded by Nokia Research Center (NRC) and conducted in collaboration with Aalto University. The UX Tools project aims at creating a set of methods and techniques to assist Nokia in ensuring great User Experience during product development. From NRC side the responsible head of the project is Virpi Roto.

To be able to innovate new UX design and evaluation methods that benefit Nokia, the team must understand the ways of working in this company. To gain this understanding, we will conduct interviews with ~10 key people from different Nokia units.

Naturally, the results of the interviews will be treated as confidential. The interviewers work under the permission of Nokia and all team members have signed non-disclosure agreements.

We are especially interested in the assessment of user related issues and their impacts on the whole development field.

Topics to be covered in this interview will be
- responsibilities concerning product or service development,
- decision making process during product design
- design and evaluation methods in use
- goal definition
- User Experience in general

The interview will take approximately 1.5 hours and will be conducted in English. You will be interviewed by two UX Tools project researchers.

If you are willing to participate we would kindly ask you to propose some dates in February that will suit you the best; Lutz Gegner is your contact for interview scheduling (lutz.gegner@taik.fi). If you have any questions on the interview content or other potential interviewees, please contact Virpi Roto (virpi.roto@nokia.com).

Thanks! Yes, there are plenty of questions, so you will have to select the most important ones for each interviewee. I can prioritize the questions from my perspective, but I dont know how helpful that would be.

How many interviews are you targeting at?

About the interview lead, I guess it will be used in the invitation email when recruiting the interviewees? If so, I would like to emphasize the confidentiality aspects before explaining the content. I did also some changes to make this sound more convincing (I hope; I bolded the text I was not sure about):

"Dear XY,

We have selected you as a potential interviewee for the following purpose:

User Experience (UX) Tools is a winner project from Nokia's open call for research projects. It is funded by Nokia Research Center (NRC) and conducted in collaboration with Aalto University. The UX Tools project aims at creating a set of methods and techniques to assist Nokia in ensuring great User Experience during product development. From NRC side the responsible head of the project is Virpi Roto (Principal Scientist, UX).

To be able to innovate new UX design and evaluation methods that benefit Nokia, the team must understand the ways of working in this company. To gain this understanding, we will conduct interviews with ~10 key people from different Nokia units.

Naturally, the results of the interviews will be treated as confidential. The interviewers work under the permission of Nokia and all team members have signed non-disclosure agreements.

We are especially interested in the assessment of user related issues and their impacts on the whole development field.

Topics to be covered in this interview will be
- responsibilities concerning product or service development,
- decision making process during product design
- design and evaluation methods in use
- goal definition
- User Experience in general

The interview will take approximately 1-2 hours and will be conducted in English. You will be interviewed by two UX Tools project researchers.

If you are willing to participate we would kindly ask you to propose some dates in February that will suit you the best. If you have any questions on the interview content or potential interviewees, please contact Virpi Roto. For questions on the interview scheduling, please contact Lutz Gegner.

Hyviä kysymyksiä, kannatan niiden lisäämistä joukkoon!

Virpi

Thanks Mikael!

I think the questions are in a good shape now for the first interview; you can then give more explanations if the interviewee does not know how to answer, and adjust the questions on the way.

Have you already thought about the analysis phase? Something more concrete than the talk might help the analysis: drawings, tables, even questionnaires? I'm just worried that if you run up to 10 interviews, you will have the knowledge in your head, but how you will be able to disseminate the results to the rest of the team?

  Virpi

Thanks for the reply, Lutz! It all makes sense.

For public information on Nokia's structure, you can check http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia/company/structure.

Virpi

Nice set of questions!
I had to check the goal for the interviews from the project plan, and found this: "Analysis of existing Nokia development processes and understanding the product development domain in which UX tools processes can be utilized". So should we focus a bit more on the development processes, at least to find out the type of the process (e.g. agile)?  I dont know why we have to dig so deeply into decision making, achievements evaluation and goal setting. This does not mean I'm against them, I just need an explanation to understand.

Below my comments/additions bolded.

Responsibilities

    * Define your unit's position inside Nokia. (special area of responsibility?)
    * Define your position inside your unit. (What is your special area or responsibility?) 
    * What are the biggest challenges your job entails?  <Too wide? Focus.>
    * At what stage(s) of the development process are you involved?
    * Do you apply agile development process? <only for developers>
    * What are the other stakeholders that have an impact on your work (affiliated departments, persons, departments to report to...etc.) <Too wide? Focus.>
    * What kind of activities do you participate in (as a person, as unit)? <Too wide? Focus.>

Decision-making  <I don't quite see yet how this helps UXTools work, but I remember Turkka proposed to focus on this. Clarify?>

    * What product-related decisions you (your department/unit) can do by yourself and what things are given? (what are the limits of your decision-making?)
    * What's the process for decision-making?
    * On what kind of aspects do you focus in decision-making?
    * What impact do your decisions have on products and other projects (software development vs. product development vs. service development)
 
Evaluations

    * What kind of evaluations do you perform as a unit? <Too wide? Focus.>
    * What is the key information you are interested in (in which not at all (limitations))?  <Too wide? Focus.>
    * Are there any common goals set for all departments or units working in a related area to your unit?
    * What about performance reviews? (How do you measure your achievements?) <I think the latter question is better>
    * How often are they done?
    * Do you have a set procedure you follow for evaluating?
    * So what are the specific methods you employ? <For what? Focus.>

How designers/developers/marketers (in the business units) understand UX as a concept?

    * What is your understanding of UX? <Too wide? Focus.>
    * How did you learn about UX?
    * How long have you been aware of the term UX?   
    * How do you feel about UX personally? (Do you consider UX as an add-on to usability?)  <I think the latter question is better>
    * Is UX important for your work?
       - if yes: how has it changed your way of working? (Do you already employ UX assessment?)   <I think the latter question is important>
       - if no: why isn't it? 
    * What role does (could) it play for your overall work?
    * Which aspects of UX do you consider relevant for your work?
    * How are UX related issues discussed in your unit?  <Too wide? Focus.>
    * Are you aware of Nokia's UX elements (Usability, Utility, Enjoyment, Social Value)?
    * What kind of needs within the UX field do you have? If any?
    * What are the situations UX knowledge could/should be used?
    * Do you feel that there is a Nokia product that is especially good/bad in UX sense? Why? <Explain them why we ask this question>
 
Goal definition

    * Who is responsible for goal setting?  <What goals? Personal/project/product/UX work? Focus.>
    * On what kind of data are the goals built on?
    * Does UX play a role in the goal settings of projects? If yes, are there any objectives for UX? Which things are/should be measured?

Extra
 
    * is there a person you would recommend to us, whom we should interview? 
    * Is there a suitable project we could participate in?
<I think the following ones are important, wonder why they are here?>
    * How is a product developed in Nokia? <Too wide? Focus.>
    * What are the main phases in product development? 
    * How do you monitor the effects of your work on the final product?