User Interview Guide

Build my user research interview guide.

What I'm trying to learn (the decision this research feeds): [e.g. "whether to build feature X" / "why trials don't convert" / "how [ROLE] handles [TASK] today"]
Who I'm interviewing: [THE SEGMENT + how many + how recruited]
My product/idea (so you can police my bias): [WHAT IT IS, and note: the interview must work WITHOUT pitching this]
What I already believe: [MY HYPOTHESES, HONESTLY: these are what the interview must be able to DISPROVE]

Build:
1. **Research questions vs. interview questions**: first, the 3-4 things the RESEARCH must answer (internal), then the interview questions that get there obliquely. Nobody answers "would you pay for X?" truthfully: the guide never asks it.
2. **The guide (30-45 min):**
   - Warm-up (5 min): context questions that get them talking about their world, not my topic.
   - The core (25-30 min): organized by research question. Rules the questions must obey:
     * Past behavior over hypotheticals: "Walk me through the last time you [did the task]", never "would you...", "how often do you usually..." (people report their idealized selves; the last specific time is data).
     * Follow the pain: when they mention a workaround, frustration, or spreadsheet; that's the vein. Probe set: "what did that cost you?" / "what did you try before?" / "show me, if you can."
     * No leading: "How do you handle X?" not "Is X annoying?": every question that contains its own desired answer gets rewritten.
     * The money questions (asked as history, not futures): "Have you paid for anything to solve this?" / "What happened to the budget for this last year?"
   - Wrap (5 min): "What should I have asked about that I didn't?" + the referral ask ("who else deals with this?").
   For each core question: the follow-up tree (if they say X → probe with Y) and what a signal answer vs. a polite answer looks like.
3. **The discipline rules, printed at the top of the guide:** talk 20%, listen 80%; never pitch, never explain the idea until the final 2 minutes (if at all); silence is a tool. Count to 4 before rescuing them; compliments are noise, commitments are signal (their time, their money, their referrals, their data).
4. **Debrief template**: filled within 30 minutes after each call: surprises / hypothesis evidence for-and-against / verbatim quotes worth keeping / new questions raised. Plus the tally sheet across interviews so patterns emerge from data, not memory.

Rules: every question tests something. Cut questions whose answer changes nothing. If my hypotheses are framed unfalsifiably, fix that first and show me the falsifiable version.