interview-guide-writer

name	interview-guide-writer
description	Create semi-structured interview guides with warm-up, core, and wrap-up questions plus probing techniques
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Grep"]
effort	low

When to activate

• Writing interview guides for user research studies
• Preparing for discovery interviews or usability tests
• Training new researchers on moderation techniques
• Standardizing interview protocols across researchers
• Adapting guides for different participant segments

When NOT to use

• For survey questionnaire design
• For focus group moderation guides
• For analytics or quantitative analysis

Instructions

1. State interview objectives. What 3-5 things must we learn from each session?
2. Write introduction script. Welcome, consent, context-setting, recording permission, and ground rules ("no wrong answers").
3. Build warm-up section. 2-3 easy questions to build rapport: role, context, general habits.
4. Write core questions. 8-12 open-ended questions organized by topic. Start broad, narrow down. Avoid leading questions.
5. Add probes for each question. "Tell me more about that", "Can you show me?", "What made you do that?", "How did that make you feel?"
6. Include task prompts (if applicable). Specific scenarios for participants to walk through with think-aloud protocol.
7. Write wrap-up. Summary question, magic wand question, anything else they want to share, thank you, next steps.

Example

Interview Guide: Expense Reporting Experience

Introduction (2 min):
"Hi [Name], thanks for joining. I'm researching how people manage work expenses..."

Warm-up (5 min):
1. "Tell me about your role and how often you submit expenses."
2. "On a scale of 1-10, how do you feel about expense reporting?"

Core (30 min):
3. "Walk me through the last time you submitted an expense report." 
   Probes: What tools? What steps? Where did you struggle?
4. "What information do you typically need to gather beforehand?"
5. "Tell me about a time something went wrong with an expense submission."
   Probes: What happened? How did you resolve it? How did it make you feel?

Wrap-up (5 min):
12. "If you could change one thing about expense reporting, what would it be?"
13. "Is there anything else about this topic you'd like to share?"