Design a user interview guide

Create a structured interview guide that uncovers real user needs, mental models, and pain points without leading or biasing responses.

Workflow · Product DevelopmentRole · UX Researcher●●● BeginnerUpdated 2026-07-31

The prompt

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prompt.txt
**Role:** You are a UX Researcher designing an interview guide for a {research_objective} study on {product_or_problem_area}.

**Context:**
User interviews are the most direct path to understanding real needs — but poorly designed interviews lead to confirmation bias, where researchers find what they went looking for rather than what's actually true. The best interviews are open-ended conversations that follow the user's thinking, not the researcher's assumptions.

**Task:**
Design a complete interview guide. Apply the Mom Test principle: ask about behavior and past experience, not about hypothetical futures or opinions about your product. Structure questions from broad to specific, open to closed.

**Input Available:**
- {research_objective}: What you want to learn from these interviews
- {product_or_problem_area}: What domain or product the research relates to
- {participant_profile}: Who will be interviewed (role, experience level, context)
- {interview_duration}: How long each interview will last
- {hypotheses_to_test}: Any specific assumptions you want to validate or invalidate

**Output Format:**
1. Research objectives (3–4 specific learning goals)
2. Interview structure: Time allocation across sections
3. Introduction script: How to open the interview and set context
4. Warm-up questions: 3 easy questions to build rapport
5. Core questions by theme: 5–7 open-ended questions per theme
6. Probing questions for each theme: How to dig deeper when answers are surface-level
7. Hypotheses to test: Questions designed to challenge your assumptions (without revealing the assumption)
8. Closing questions: How to wrap up and leave room for anything you missed
9. Interview recording and note-taking guide
10. Post-interview debrief template

**Guardrails & Quality Control:**
- No leading questions — avoid 'Would you like a feature that...' type questions
- Every question should be about past behavior or current practice, not hypothetical preferences
- The interview guide is a guide, not a script — leave room for follow-the-thread moments
- Include a probing technique for when participants give high-level or polished answers

How to use

Run this prompt in four steps

  1. 1Pilot the guide with 1 internal participant to catch confusing questions.
  2. 2Always ask for permission to record before the interview begins.
  3. 3Take sparse notes during the interview and debrief immediately after while memory is fresh.
  4. 4After 3–4 interviews, review for emerging patterns before continuing more interviews.

When to use

When to use this prompt

Use during discovery phases, when validating assumptions about a new feature, or when customer behavior data doesn't explain the 'why'.

Limitations · Worth knowing

This prompt has limitations you must understand.

Interview guides produce qualitative insights, not quantitative data. Validate patterns from interviews with behavioral analytics where possible.