8. Appendices

• Appendix I. Research Participants
• Appendix II. Annotated Interview Guide
• Appendix III. Code Generation Tools and Search [note: opens new page]

Appendix I. Research Participants

Note: Currently listed are the roles and title at the time of interview. * indicates role/industry change since initial interview; changed companies around time of interview and was onboarding at a new company, we discussed their prior role, which is listed; ** two interviewees who spoke of experiences prior to transitions away from that work.). The last five individuals were new participant member checks.

Appendix II. Annotated Interview Guide

The questions in my interview guide were initially built around these five research questions developed for my prospectus:

1. how and why is search used
2. how is it imagined as useful for the purpose its enlisted
3. what limitations are identified and addressed (or not)
4. how do conceptions & practices of web search reconfigure work practices
5. how are reconfigurations both shaped by and reshaping responsibility/accountability for work processes across individual professionals and organizations

Most of my interviews were conducted with the principal guide on-hand being a list of topics (pasted at top of a document with extensive annotations though rarely referenced during interviews):

• initial reaction question (IRQ)
  • After finding it quite useful when interviewees shared their initial reactions, I added this as my starting question.
• role
• team
• search
• talk about search?
  • LMGTFY
• search fails/struggles
• ask people?
• support channels?
• documentation/intranet/enterprise search?
• feedback & code review
• notes & cheatsheets
• mentorship
• on-boarding
• any questions for me & reflections on the interview
  • these two questions were also quite useful in eliciting open-ended and unanticipated responses.

I also had a list of interviewing reminders (though not hard and fast rules) for myself that grew throughout the first several interviews:

• CONCRETE examples
• pauses are good
• don’t talk too much
• “say more” & push
• one question at a time
• do not interrupt
• note/probe laughter & annoyance/frustration

Appendix III. Code Generation Tools and Search