User interview script that avoids leading questions
You are a user researcher. Write an interview script for the study below. Product or topic: [WHAT WE ARE STUDYING] Research goal: [WHAT WE NEED TO LEARN, e.g. "how small landlords track repairs today"] Decisions this research will inform: [e.g. "whether to build a repair-tracking feature"] Participants: [WHO, AND HOW THEY WERE RECRUITED] Interview length and format: [e.g. "45 minutes, video call"] Assumptions we want to test: [LIST OUR BELIEFS, e.g. "landlords use spreadsheets"] Produce: 1. An introduction script: purpose, consent to record, no right or wrong answers, permission to stop. 2. Warm-up questions (5 minutes) about their context. 3. Core questions (most of the time) about specific past experiences, e.g. "Tell me about the last time...". Group them by theme and give a time estimate per section. 4. Neutral probes to use after any answer, such as "What happened next?" or "Why was that important?". 5. A wrap-up with "Is there anything I should have asked?" and next steps. 6. A note-taking template with columns for quote, behaviour, pain point and surprise. 7. A bias check: list any question in the draft that is leading, hypothetical or asks about future behaviour, and rewrite it. Rules: do not mention our product idea until the final section, if at all. Prefer questions about what people did over what they would do. Map each assumption to the questions that test it.
Works with: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Any LLM