Writes a non-leading user-research discussion guide with warm-up flow, open core questions, an attached probe bank, time budgets, and a pre-field bias audit. Use when someone asks "write my interview guide", "what should I ask users in discovery interviews", "review my questions for leading language", or is preparing generative or evaluative user interviews. Do NOT use for hiring-loop questions with competencies and scoring anchors - use interview-question-kit instead. Do NOT use for sourcing deep domain knowledge from subject-matter experts with laddering - use expert-interview instead. To analyze the notes afterward, use interview-synthesis.
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name: Interview Guide Builder
description: Writes a non-leading user-research discussion guide with warm-up flow, open core questions, an attached probe bank, time budgets, and a pre-field bias audit. Use when someone asks "write my interview guide", "what should I ask users in discovery interviews", "review my questions for leading language", or is preparing generative or evaluative user interviews. Do NOT use for hiring-loop questions with competencies and scoring anchors - use interview-question-kit instead. Do NOT use for sourcing deep domain knowledge from subject-matter experts with laddering - use expert-interview instead. To analyze the notes afterward, use interview-synthesis.
---
# Interview Guide Builder
A discussion guide is scaffolding, not a script: it keeps the researcher oriented while leaving room for the participant to lead. The costly failure it prevents is manufactured confirmation - a guide full of leading questions returns exactly the answers the team already believed, and the product ships into a market that was never actually heard.
## Operating procedure
### Step 1: Gather inputs
Collect before drafting:
- Research goal in one sentence, and whether the round is **generative** (understand behavior and needs) or **evaluative** (react to a concept or prototype). Default: generative.
- The 3-5 things the team must learn - these become topic blocks; anything beyond five gets cut or deferred to another round.
- Session length (default 60 minutes), participant profile, and whether sessions are recorded.
- The team's current hypotheses - written down explicitly so they can be kept OUT of the question stems.
Label any assumed goal as a guess and confirm.
### Step 2: Build the structure
Every guide follows this arc, in order, because trust must be established before depth is possible:… load the full skill through Skill Me