Product Thinking · Published September 21, 2026
Three Questions Worth Asking in User Interviews
Asking what people want yields imagination; asking what they did last time yields facts.
The most common research mistake is mistaking imagination for requirement. Users happily describe an ideal system but rarely recall precisely what they did last month. Our interview outline is built around past behaviour.
The three questions
When did you last hit this problem, and what exactly happened? It pulls the conversation from abstraction into fact.
How did you solve it? Which tools, which people, how long? The real pain usually hides in this answer.
What would you do if the system broke tomorrow? It reveals how much the business actually depends on it.
Two rules while interviewing
Do not interrupt and do not pitch a solution. Useful information appears while users describe details.
Record their words, not your summary. Summaries quietly absorb your own assumptions.
A good interview leaves you with a record of concrete behaviour, not a wish list of features.
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