Generic and well-known info (agreed, can usually be quite common things) can make sense for the sake of completeness of the interview but not for much else. Le

Generic and well-known info (agreed, can usually be quite common things) can make sense for the sake of completeness of the interview but not for much else. Less known or seemingly trivial background information could instead help to evaluate some of the answers the interviewee give or understand the reasoning behind some of his choices. Just to give you an example, does the fact that the interviewee knew at some point in his life person X or that he previously did Y lead him to do Z? Knowing that X and Y exist could help to find the answer. These kind of questions aim to explain the why and thus interesting only from a biographic point of view, personally i feel the how to be more useful so i'd limit the biographic data to a minimum, explain only what is needed to give context to the interview.