Plan customer interviews around real behavior, recent events, and useful follow-up questions. Use the example as a starting point, then adapt the steps to your product, team, and evidence.
WHAT YOU’LL LEAVE WITH
A research plan, interview script, and source-linked observations.
Before you begin
- A research question and recruitment criteria
- Consent and an appropriate recording or note-taking approach
- A place to store approved notes securely
STEP 01
Choose a question you can investigate
Focus on a behavior or decision you need to understand. Example: how do new team administrators decide which setup task to do first? Avoid using an interview to seek approval for a solution you already prefer.
STEP 02
Recruit relevant perspectives
Define who has recently experienced the situation. Include useful variation, such as successful and unsuccessful users. Record recruitment limitations. Convenience interviews can be informative without representing your entire market.
STEP 03
Ask about a recent event
Invite the person to walk through the last time the task occurred. Ask what triggered it, what they tried, what happened, and what they did next. Follow their account before introducing a concept.
STEP 04
Listen without steering
Avoid questions such as “Wouldn’t this feature help?” Ask for concrete examples and clarify unfamiliar terms. Pause before suggesting an explanation. Capture exact wording only when your notes or recording support it.
STEP 05
Synthesize with traceable evidence
Separate what the person said, what you observed, and what you infer. AI can help organize approved notes and locate potential themes, but check excerpts against the original source. Preserve conflicting accounts.
STEP 06
Update the decision
Write what you learned, the uncertainty that remains, and what should happen next. A small interview sample can reveal mechanisms and ideas; it does not establish how common a pattern is across all users.
MAKE THIS PROMPT YOUR OWN
Review this interview script for leading questions and hypothetical future-behavior questions. Rewrite them to ask about recent real events. After the interviews, use only supplied notes to suggest themes with source IDs and exact supporting excerpts. Preserve contradictory evidence.
Check your work
- Are participants relevant to the question?
- Does the script ask about real events?
- Are observations distinct from interpretations?
- Are conclusions proportional to the evidence?
Further reading: related templates & resources ↗
Editorial guide · Reviewed September 27, 2026. Tool interfaces may change.