Sick & Tired

Why Read This from an HCI Perspective

This article helps you see user interviews not as a simple execution step, but as an HCI task where problem definition and sample design are tightly intertwined. It’s common for a PM to schedule interviews first, but the way you align priorities among the research questions, the target participants, and the timeline ultimately determines UX quality. For practitioners, it’s an opportunity to review collaboration structures; for researchers, it’s a chance to rethink operating principles that make research function as ‘learning’ rather than mere ‘verification.’

CIT's Commentary

From a CIT perspective, this isn’t really a matter of ‘the PM being rude’; it’s about whether research operations and the decision-making structure are separated. Scheduling interviews first in itself may not be inherently bad—however, if it isn’t followed by aligning the research questions and defining the target users, sampling bias and interpretation errors can easily occur. The key isn’t how fast you manage the schedule, but whether there’s agreement on what learning is needed. So, rather than blocking defensively, it’s practical for researchers to restructure the process by introducing a question backlog and at least a minimal research design gate—preserving the PM’s momentum while protecting the validity of the research.

Questions to Consider While Reading

• Q.In a culture where PMs take over interview scheduling, how can we design the minimum gate needed to align on research questions?
• Q.Where should the boundary be drawn between the PM’s role in supporting research operations and the researcher’s role in owning research validity?
• Q.When interview schedules are set first and sample definition is delayed, what negotiation framework is most effective for HCI researchers?