Template

User research interview template

One customer, in their own words: what they were trying to do, what they did, and where it went wrong.

45 minutesFor Product managers, designers and foundersAgenda room
Change the agenda first

The agenda, with a time for each part

  1. About you and your work5 min
    • What does a normal week look like for you?
  2. The last time you did this10 min
    • When was the last time? Talk me through it from the start.
  3. Show me how you do it12 min
    • Can you share your screen and do it the way you normally would?
  4. What is hard about it8 min
    • Where do you slow down?
    • What do you do when that happens?
  5. What you have tried6 min
    • What else have you used for this? Why did you stop?
  6. Anything I did not ask4 min
    • What should I have asked you?

How the notes read afterwards

A made-up example, so you can see the shape. In a real call each line carries the words that were said and who said them.

Last time. Tuesday: wrote up a client call from memory forty minutes after it ended.

Hard. Remembering who agreed to what; she now records a voice note on the way out.

Tried. A notetaker bot; stopped when a client asked who it was.

Running it well

Ways to change it

Twenty-minute versionThe last time they did it, what was hard, and what they have tried.
With a prototypeDo the first four parts first, and show the prototype only in the last ten minutes.

When to skip it. When you have already heard the same thing from five people. Go and build it.

Questions

How many user interviews do you need?

Five to eight per kind of customer. After that you mostly hear things again.

What questions should you ask in a user interview?

Ask about the last time they did the thing, what was hard, and what they tried. Do not ask whether they would use your idea.

What happens in the room

Everybody joins from the link, with no account. The agenda sits beside the call and each item fills in with what was said about it, under the name of the person who said it.

More templates

Lessons learned meetingAt the end of a project: what to do again, what never to do again, and where those lessons will be kept so the next project finds them.Go/no-go meetingBefore a launch: each owner says ready or not ready, and one person makes the call.Sprint reviewAt the end of a sprint: show what was finished, hear what the people it is for think, and change what comes next.Project kickoffWhy the project exists, what done means, and who owns what — agreed on day one.Sprint retrospectiveWhat went well, what did not, and the one or two changes you will actually make.Sprint planningOne goal for the sprint, the work that serves it, and who takes what.Incident postmortemWhat happened, why, and what changes so it does not happen again — without blaming anybody.Product roadmap reviewWhat is being built next and why, what moved since last time, and what was cut to make room.

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