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All categories/Product and design

Requirements and product · Level Advanced · Product Interviews Research

User interviews: behaviour, not opinions

Interviews that return 'it is fine'.

Prompt

Ask what happens if we do not build it, then who uses it and how often. If those have no answer, it does not get scheduled.

Task: Interviews that return 'it is fine'.

[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
   - the hypothesis
   - user type
   - duration
   - can you watch them work
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.

[Go through each of these]
- ask about the last specific time, not hypotheticals
- ask for a demo and watch where they stall
- never ask what features they want
- record three surprises

[Process]
1. Reconstruct what the user actually does
2. Decide whether this is a need or a proposed solution
3. Offer build, do not build, or another way
4. Write checkable acceptance criteria
5. Mark the risk and reversibility

[Output]
Problem, judgement, options, acceptance, risk.

[Do not]
- Never copy the requester's solution
- No scheduling without a usage scene
- No acceptance criteria like 'improve experience'
- Never three features at once

What to state before it starts

Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.

  • the hypothesis
  • user type
  • duration
  • can you watch them work

Go through each of these

Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.

  • ask about the last specific time, not hypotheticals
  • ask for a demo and watch where they stall
  • never ask what features they want
  • record three surprises