How to use this script:

1. Customize the bracketed language according to your needs.
2. Avoid leading the interviewee’s answers, e.g., don’t describe your product or what you perceive to be the problem users are solving (the job they’re hiring for).

Introduction

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with [our product]. We’d love to understand how people use it, so we’ve scheduled some interviews with people like you who [have used our product] to hear their stories.

We’re not looking for any specific answer—your honest feedback will help us improve [our product]. If you can’t remember something, that’s OK. We just want to hear about your experience.

• I’d like to keep our conversation to [30 minutes]. Do you have a hard stop that I should know about?
• Would it be OK if I record our conversation so that I don’t need to take notes? We won’t use any of the footage without your permission.

Great, let’s get started.

Exploring

• Tell me a bit about yourself, e.g., demographic info, geographic location.
• What’s your relationship with [topic]?
• How familiar are you with [topic]?
• What frustrates you about [topic]?
• What excites you about [topic]?
• What did you run into that made you decide something needed to be done?
  • When did this happen?
  • How often did this happen?
  • How did this make you feel?

Considering

• When did you start thinking about solving [the problem]?
• How did you hope to feel after solving [the problem]?
• How important is solving [this problem] to you?