5 Questions to Ask When Conducting User Interviews

A practical guide on how to conduct effective user research to gain invaluable insights that can shape your product's future.

User interviews are one of the most powerful tools in a product manager's toolkit. They provide direct, qualitative insights into your customers' needs, motivations, and pain points. But the true power of an interview isn't in just talking to users; it's in asking the right questions.

Instead of asking users what features they want, the goal is to get them to tell you stories about their past experiences and behaviors. This helps you uncover their underlying needs, leading to more innovative solutions. We've compiled five essential questions to help you get started, ensuring your next user interview yields the most valuable information possible.

The 5 Essential Questions

1. "Can you walk me through the last time you tried to [achieve a specific goal]?"

This question grounds the conversation in a specific, recent event. People are better at recalling what they actually did than at predicting what they might do. By asking them to "walk you through" it, you encourage them to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. This reveals their process, the tools they used, and the context of their actions.

Example: Instead of asking, "Would you use an app to track your daily expenses?", ask, "Can you walk me through the last time you managed a large expense for your home?" This will reveal their current methods, whether they used a spreadsheet, a specific app, or simply a notebook.

2. "What was the most frustrating part of that experience?"

This question is designed to pinpoint the biggest pain points. Users may not openly complain, but by asking them to reflect on a specific negative emotion—frustration—you get them to reveal where their current solution fails them. This is where you find the problems that are truly worth solving.

Example: After they've described their process, ask, "What was the most frustrating part of trying to get that information into the spreadsheet?" Their answer might reveal a clunky interface, a lack of automation, or the need to switch between multiple tools.

3. "Why was that so difficult?"

This is the classic "5 Whys" in action. By asking "why," you can dig deeper into the root cause of the problem. Often, the initial pain point is just a symptom of a deeper, more fundamental issue. You're not just looking for surface-level annoyances; you're trying to understand the core reason for their struggle.

Example: If they say it was frustrating to manually enter data, ask, "Why was that so difficult?" Their answer might be, "Because the data was in a PDF, and I couldn't copy and paste it," which points to a problem with data import, not just manual entry.

4. "How do you solve this problem right now?"

This question reveals the workarounds and compromises users are making. People are incredibly resourceful, and they often create their own clever, albeit inefficient, systems to get by. Understanding these current solutions is critical because it shows that the problem is important enough for them to take time and effort to fix it themselves.

Example: Ask, "What do you do right now to get around the issue of [Problem X]?" Their response might be, "I take a screenshot and email it to myself," or "I use two separate programs and manually transfer data between them." This tells you what they're doing to survive without your product.

5. "How important is it for you to solve this problem, on a scale of 1 to 10?"

This question is a powerful reality check. You've uncovered a problem and a workaround, but is the user truly motivated to find a better solution? A low number might indicate a minor annoyance, while a high number suggests a significant need. The most important part of this question, however, is the follow-up: "Why did you choose that number?" This helps you understand their priorities and the context of their rating.

Example: If they say "8," ask, "Why is it an 8?" Their answer might be, "Because it costs me at least 30 minutes a day," or "It's costing me money every month." This quantifies the value of your potential solution.

By focusing on these types of open-ended, behavior-based questions, you move beyond simple feature requests and begin to truly understand your user. Remember, a great product isn't built by giving customers exactly what they ask for—it's built by understanding their needs so well that you can give them what they truly need.