A user interview script you can run in ten minutes
The structure
Ten minutes is enough if you do not waste the first three. Skip the small talk, say what the interview is for, promise it is short, and go.
Open (one minute). Thank them. Say what you are trying to learn in one sentence. Tell them there are no wrong answers and that you want stories, not opinions.
Core (seven minutes). Five questions, each with follow-ups. Follow the answer, not the script.
- What does your current situation with this look like?
- Follow up: How often does it come up? Who else is involved?
- Tell me about one specific recent time it came up.
- Follow up: What happened first? Then what? How did it end?
- What did you try?
- Follow up: Why that? What did you stop using, and why?
- What did it cost you?
- Follow up: Time, money, something you could not do because of it.
- If one thing about this were different, what would you change?
- Follow up: What would that let you do?
Close (two minutes). "Is there anything I should have asked and didn't?" Then thank them and say what happens next with what they told you.
Follow-ups that always work
- "When did that last happen?"
- "What did you do instead?"
- "Walk me through it."
- "What made that hard?"
- "Can you give me an example?"
Mistakes that ruin the transcript
- Explaining your product when they get something wrong. Note it, move on.
- Asking two questions in one message. They answer the easier one.
- Filling silence. Wait.
Run this script
This is the structure Ten Interviews' AI interviewer follows. Send one link to ten users; each gets this interview in about ten minutes; you get the transcripts, a summary per interview, and a synthesis across them. The first three are free.