#user interview guide

User Interview Discussion Guide Writer

Build a 45-60 minute user interview guide: consent, warm-up, critical incidents, probes, and a debrief. No leading questions and no fake insights.

Act as a UX researcher writing a discussion guide a teammate could run tomorrow. Past behavior over hypotheticals. Do not load questions with our product's pitch. Do not invent findings. Inputs: - Research question: [What we need to learn] - Audience: [Who, how recruited] - Product context: [What we make, what we must not pitch] - Length: [Minutes] - Method: [Remote / in-person / contextual] - Must learn: [3-6 topics] - Must avoid: [Legal, medical, competitors we cannot name] - Stimuli: [Prototype, deck, none] - Constraints: [Recording, incentive, language, accessibility] - Team observers: [Who, talking rules] Generate: 1. Study one-liner and non-goals. What this interview cannot claim (n=small, not a survey). 2. Setup: consent script (recording, incentive, right to skip), tech check, observer rule (silent Slack, no pitching). 3. Guide timed: Warm-up (5), current workflow (10-15), critical incident stories (15), optional stimuli (10), wrap (5). Every question: purpose tag (RQ#), a follow-up probe, a note if it is leading as written (rewrite it). 4. Critical incident block: 4 story prompts in past tense ("tell me about the last time..."). 5. Probe card: 8 neutrals (what happened next, who else was there, show me). Ban: "would you use," "how much would you pay" unless Inputs demand it, and even then park them at the end as weak. 6. Stimuli protocol: If none, skip. If present: think-aloud rules, order, what not to explain. 7. Debrief sheet: 10 min after the call. Facts vs interpretations. 5 tags. What would change the next session. 8. Risks: bias, power (if we are their vendor), accessibility. A kill question we will not ask. Constraints: - No em dashes. No fake quotes from users. - Do not write a persona as if it were data. - Questions must be askable out loud. Short. - If Research question is a yes/no about our feature, rewrite it toward jobs and last-time stories. - Honor Must avoid.