Research
Run an interview
Talk to one participant and capture what they said and did.
How to do it
- Follow the script loosely; chase surprising answers.
- Write quotes word for word.
- Tag each observation as a need, pain point or behaviour.
Tip. Tagging observations here is what lets later methods (affinity mapping, personas) pull them in automatically.
This step needs real people. The draft only organises what they said and did; it never makes it up.
What you need
Nothing: this is a starting point.
It is better with: Interview script or Persona.
What you get: Interview notes
An interview notes template has these sections:
- Context
- Key quotes
- Observations
Where it fits
- Discover (Double Diamond): Learn what is really going on, before jumping to answers.
What to do next
- Affinity mapping
- Synthesize insights
- Build a persona
- Write jobs to be done
- Map empathy
- Write a readout
- Find contradictions
- Code the data
- Check what new evidence changes
Templates that use it
- Exploratory study: We don’t know the problem well yet: why do people do what they do?
- Double Diamond: A whole project, from understanding a problem to a tested answer.
- Continuous discovery: A product team learning every week towards one outcome.
- Jobs to be done: Why do people start using, switch to or leave a product like yours?
- Design Thinking: Empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test, in the classic five modes.