Design a User Interview Guide

Create a user interview discussion guide for the following research:

Research goal: [what are you trying to learn?]
Product or topic area: [describe it]
Participant profile: [who are you interviewing — their role, experience, relationship with the product]
Interview length: [e.g. 30 minutes / 45 minutes / 60 minutes]
Known hypotheses to test: [your assumptions going in]

Discussion guide structure:

Intro (5 minutes):
- Consent and recording permission script
- Warm-up: make them comfortable (2–3 background questions)
- Set expectations for the session

Core questions by topic area (3–5 topic areas, 3–4 questions each):
- Open-ended questions only (no leading, no yes/no)
- Follow-up probes for each question (e.g. "Tell me more about that" / "What happened next?" / "Why did that matter to you?")
- Questions that get to behaviour, not opinion ("What did you do last time...?" not "Would you...?")

Closing (5 minutes):
- Anything else they want to share
- Who else you should talk to
- Thank you and next steps

Include: how to handle a participant who is not forthcoming, and how to stay on time.