User Interview Guide

Discover opportunities through customer stories. Source: Torres (CDH), Kahneman, Christensen (JTBD).

Pre-Interview (Mandatory)

1. Run

   /bias-check

   before designing questions
2. Review current OST -- what are you trying to learn?
3. Design questions that are story-based and past-tense

Question Design Rules

ALWAYS Ask (story-based, past behavior)

• "Tell me about the last time you [tried to accomplish X]..."
• "Walk me through what happened when [situation]..."
• "What did you do when [problem occurred]?"
• "How did that make you feel?" (emotional dimension -- JTBD)
• "What did other people think about that?" (social dimension -- JTBD)

NEVER Ask (hypothetical, opinion, leading)

• "Would you use a feature that...?" (hypothetical)
• "Do you think X is a good idea?" (opinion)
• "Don't you find it frustrating when...?" (leading)
• "On a scale of 1-10, how important is...?" (abstract)
• "What features would you want?" (solution-space, not problem-space)

During Interview

Three Mindsets (Brown)

• Curiosity: Ask from genuine interest. "Walk me through..." not "What are your pain points?"
• Skepticism: Probe beneath surface responses. "Why does your team call this a 'power user'?" Challenge assumptions without being adversarial.
• Humility: "Can you say that again so I get it right?" Don't assume immediate comprehension.

Master the pause: Wait 3-5 seconds after each response before your next question. Silence often prompts the real insight.

Listening

• Listen for hiring/firing language (JTBD)
• Note emotional reactions (tone, hesitation, enthusiasm)
• Follow up on surprises -- "That's interesting, tell me more about..."
• Don't pitch or defend -- you're here to learn, not sell
• Watch for the say-do gap: people describe intended behavior, not actual behavior. Ask the same question multiple ways to cross-check.

Post-Interview Snapshot

Create immediately after each interview:

• 3-5 key quotes (verbatim)
• Opportunities identified (needs/pain points/desires)
• Surprises (things you didn't expect)
• JTBD dimensions observed (functional/emotional/social)
• Biases to watch for in interpretation
• Scenarios extracted (see below)

Scenario Extraction (Hoskins)

Interviews are where scenarios are born. After each interview, look for narratives that contain Hoskins' four elements:

1. Persona: The interviewee's role, context, constraints, goals — captured naturally in the conversation
2. Means: How they interact with existing tools/processes — captured in "walk me through" questions
3. Motive: Why they're doing this — captured in JTBD dimensions (functional, emotional, social)
4. Simulation: The story itself — the "last time you tried to..." narrative IS the simulation

Draft a scenario entry for

canvas/scenarios.yml

from any interview story that is rich enough. Not every interview produces a scenario — only extract when all four elements are present. A partial story is an opportunity, not a scenario.

Source: Hoskins, "Attention to Users Is All You Need" (SAP talk, April 2026) — "Scenarios are the fundamental primitive of product thinking."

Closing

Always end with: "Is there anything else you'd like to share that I didn't ask about?"

This is where the most surprising insights surface. The interviewee has been primed by the structured questions and now has permission to surface what's actually on their mind.

Source: Brown (EightShapes), NNGroup, IxDF.

Output

• Update canvas/opportunities.yml with new evidence
• Update canvas/user-needs.yml
• Update canvas/jobs-to-be-done.yml
• Update canvas/scenarios.yml with extracted scenarios (if four elements present)
• Add snapshot to product-journal.md