Week 6: Customer Interviews No. 3

Interviewing Customers: Third Time's The Charm!

Strategy:

My interviewing strategy: Like Dr. Pryor's email suggested, I wrote down a short description of the service I am offering (Clear Vote) on a notecard for the people I interviewed. That way there was more of a knowledge of the product I would be offering to my consumers. My notecard read: "Clear Vote provides a mobile application that focuses on candidates and their respective issue. It provides users a way to make voting easier and more specific to an individual’s values and beliefs. The application is a way to vote in an unbiased manner, it takes away the face from the candidates and the prejudice they bring with it. Clear Vote will focus on more truthful, factual information on politics, educating the user with straightforward and easy to use information. Know exactly what, and who you're voting for."

I plan on asking UF students, as college students are my main audience.

Questions:

1) Are you registered to vote? Why or why not?

2) Do you know who you are voting for in this upcoming election and why?

3) Do you get your political knowledge from news sources such as CNN or Fox news (which tend to be more polarized)?

4) Are you voting out of your own opinions or others?

5) Would you be interested in an application that delivers unbiased news regarding the candidates in the current election?

Interviews (5):

#1: (Al)

#2: (Andrew)

#3: (Amber)

Unfortunately, my laptop died after my third interview so I had to record the remaining two on paper. Here is what the people I interviewed said:

#4: (Paul)

Q: Are you registered to vote? Why or why not?

A: Yes, because I think my voice counts.

Q: Do you know who you are voting for in this upcoming election and why?

A: Can I say the people I am not voting for?

Q: Yes that is fine.

A: I am not voting for Hillary Clinton.

Q:  Do you get your political knowledge from news sources such as CNN or Fox news (which tend to be more polarized)?

A: Facebook.

Q: Are you voting out of your own opinions or others?

A: The way voting works in my opinion, the day of the election, you have two primary candidates to choose from. One out of two will stand a better chance to serve the country so the decision is made based on the two. I think a couple good people dropped out too soon. In another word, the lesser of two peoples in this election.

Q: Would you be interested in an application that delivers unbiased news regarding the candidates in the current election?

A: The process generally, every candidate has been attacking other candidates just as much as promoting their agenda, I think candidates should only focus on their agenda. Not attacking other candidates agenda. I would be extremely interested in that app. This policy should be adopted.

#5: (Bri)

Q: Are you registered to vote? Why or why not?

A: Yes actually! I just registered to vote last week I'm very excited.

Q: Oh awesome! So do you know who you are voting for in this upcoming election and why?

A: Yep, feel the bern!! Haha I plan on voting for Bernie Sanders.

Q: Do you get your political knowledge from news sources such as CNN or Fox news (which tend to be more polarized)?

A: If I watch the news it tends to be Fox news more so than CNN. But I don't really get my news from the TV. I watch all the campaign commercials on Facebook and get news off of twitter.

Q: Oh very interesting. Using social media, that can be very informative in some cases yet misleading as well, you need to be careful. Are you voting out of your own opinions or others?

A: I agree with Bernie's agenda it is definitely my choice of who I am voting for.

Q: Would you be interested in an application that delivers unbiased news regarding the candidates in the current election?

A: Yeah that sounds like a good idea! Sometimes I feel so lost when it comes to what candidate actually supports what. I would download Clear Vote.

3) Reflect on what you learned. 

I am glad I conducted these interviews as I got positive feedback and learned more about my application. I was very surprised to see that a lot of students are not registered to vote. I am aware that the younger population statistically votes less compared to voters in their 50s and higher, and out of the entire eligible voting population in America, only about 64% of citizens actually voted this past election. However, I guess I had hope that as college students, voting would serve a higher importance yet that is not the case. And all for the reasons to why the people I interviewed were not voting was because they felt unaware and not knowledgeable of the current candidates and politics for that matter. I know now that I really need to expand the section of my application that explains what every candidate stands for and is because there seems to be a lack in knowledge of this.