discovery-interview-guide

# Discovery Interview Guide Skill Design interviews that surface genuine insight — not validation of what you already believe. Every guide follows a story-based, past-behaviour-focused structure. ## Core Principles 1. **Never ask about the future.** "Would you use X?" tells you nothing. "Tell me about the last time you did X" tells you everything. 2. **Interview for behaviour, not opinion.** Opinions are cheap. Behaviour is evidence. 3. **The 5 Whys.** Every surface answer is a door. Keep opening doors. 4. **Confirm the problem before exploring the solution.** Never show a prototype until you've confirmed the pain exists unprompted. ## Interview Structure (60 minutes standard) ### 1. Warm-Up (5 min) Build rapport. Get them talking. Don't discuss the topic yet. - "Tell me a bit about your role and what a typical week looks like for you." - "What tools do you rely on most day-to-day?" ### 2. Context Setting (10 min) Understand their world before diving into the problem space. - "Walk me through how you currently [handle the domain area]." - "What does that process look like from start to finish?" - "Who else is involved when you do this?" ### 3. Problem Exploration (25 min) — THE CORE Surface pain without leading. - "Tell me about the last time you had to [relevant task]. What happened?" - "What was the hardest part of that?" - "How did you handle it?" - "What did you try before settling on that approach?" - "What does it cost you when this goes wrong?" (time, money, str...