Published: Oct 15, 2026

Most qualitative interviews take place while the researcher and participant are sitting across from one another, either in person or online. But sometimes the place itself is part of the experience you want to understand. In those cases, a walking interview can offer a different kind of insight.

A walking interview, sometimes called a go-along interview, involves talking with participants while moving through a setting that is relevant to the research. The researcher might walk with a participant through a library, campus, neighborhood, workplace, or other meaningful environment while asking questions along the way. Research suggests that walking interviews can generate especially rich, place-specific data because participants respond not only to questions, but also to what they see, remember, and experience in the environment around them.

One advantage of walking interviews is that the environment can act as a prompt. A participant may point out a particular room, pathway, building, sign, or object and suddenly remember an experience connected to it.

This can reveal details that might not emerge in a traditional sit-down interview. In one influential study, walking interviews produced more spatially specific accounts of place than sedentary interviews. More recent research also highlights several strengths of the method, including using places as prompts, encouraging co-creation of meaning, and providing insight into sensory and emotional experiences.

Walking together can also change the interview dynamic. Instead of the researcher directing every question from across a table, the participant can help determine where to go, what to notice, and what deserves discussion.

Walking interviews have many potential applications in library and information science. A researcher might walk with:

• students through a university library to understand how they experience different study spaces;
• community members through a public library to identify welcoming or uncomfortable areas;
• librarians through their workplace to discuss service practices and daily routines;
• archival users through an exhibit to explore how they interact with collections;
• residents through a neighborhood to understand where and how they access information.

For example, instead of simply asking a student, “How do you use the library?” a researcher could walk through the library with the student and ask them to show where they usually study, where they look for help, and which spaces they avoid. Seeing the environment together may prompt stories and observations that would otherwise be difficult to recall.

Walking interviews can be structured or flexible. Researchers might prepare a route in advance, or participants might decide where to go.

• Questions can also respond to what happens during the walk:
• What happens when you come to this area?
• Why did you choose to bring me here?
• How do you feel in this space?
• Is there anything here that makes it easier or harder for you to find information or get help?
• Has your experience of this place changed over time?

The researcher may record the conversation, take fieldnotes, document the route, or combine the interview with photographs or mapping.

Walking interviews are not appropriate for every study. Accessibility is particularly important. Walking should never become a requirement that excludes participants with mobility limitations, health concerns, or other needs. Depending on the study, researchers might use alternatives such as wheelchair-accessible routes, seated tours, virtual walkthroughs, or travelling with participants by another means. Research on go-along methods emphasizes the need to design mobility-based research inclusively rather than assuming that every participant can or wants to walk.

Researchers should also consider privacy. Conversations in public environments may be overheard, and participants may encounter people they know. Weather, noise, safety, recording quality, and physical fatigue may also affect the interview.

Walking interviews are a useful reminder that where an interview takes place can shape what participants tell us. When the research question involves space, place, movement, or everyday experience, walking alongside participants can help researchers understand not only what people think, but also how they interact with the environments around them.

For LIS researchers studying libraries, information spaces, communities, workplaces, or user experience, walking interviews can offer a creative and highly contextual way to generate qualitative data.

Further reading

Evans, J., & Jones, P. — “The Walking Interview: Methodology, Mobility and Place.”
A study comparing walking interviews with traditional interviews and demonstrating how the surrounding environment can shape the data participants provide.