In this exercise, you'll try to find one of the values of an interview subject, then verify and articulate it precisely..

This exercise assumes you already know what a value is, and have a basic understanding of how to articulate it, according to HS.

Preparation

<aside> ☝ Try this first with interview subjects who are very patient. In your first VETs, it might take an hour of interviewing to get one good value from your subject. Once you've practiced, you can get it down to 10 minutes—more suitable for busy people.

</aside>

Before your first VET:

• Read this whole page and:
  • Look at the worksheet and make sure you understand it.
  • Have a copy handy for your interview.
  • Familiarize yourself with the different questions we suggest you ask, to gather info for the different columns
  • Make sure you understand the value check procedure.

Getting Started

1. Introduce the process. Tell your subject what's about to happen. Something like this:

   • Intro blurb

2. Choose an aspect of life. You may want to focus on meaningful experiences related to your design project.

   • Otherwise, if you're open to any part of life, ask something like this:

3. Ask about a meaningful time. Start by asking for meaningful time in their life. It's best to have a meaningful moment—something that happened over 5 minutes or an hour, rather than over months or years.

   Tell me about a meaningful moment in your life with regards to (insert aspect here) - something that happened over 5 minutes or an hour, rather than over months or years. Make sure it's a story in which you were either doing something or appreciating something, not something that just passively happened to you.

   (For more advanced VETing, there are other ways to start the interview—from experiences of frustration, meaninglessness, etc.)

   • Read more

The Interview

Worksheets. Prepare a fresh worksheet for each interview. You'll collect the subject's words and phrases into three columns:

• about the context in which something was meaningful
• about what they'd pay attention to in that context to achieve meaning
• about how it feels meaningful to them, when they pay attention that way

VETTING RETAKE To Copy from

Asking questions

You'll need to ask your subject what they were doing, attending to, or appreciating, in their meaningful moment. You're looking for an attentional policy—a way of approaching things that they find rewarding that relates to a context in their life. (Full definition here.)

(See the worksheet for basic questions to ask.)