User interviews are a critical part of business, even in mature companies doing client surveys to get customer feedback is par for course. We see this with both B2B and B2C companies.
I split my questions into two groups
Exploratory questions which are more about understanding behaviours
Hypothesis confirming questions which focus on verifying if assumptions are correct.
Exploratory questions tend to be broader any more open ended, I think of it as being a journalist and asking interlinked questions based on the customer to try and pry open interesting insights. most of my exploratory questions reference behaviours, previous examples and experiences, I try to avoid hypothetical situations and references as I’d rather understand what the user has done, rather than what they might do.
My Hypothesis confirming questions tend to be a little more concrete, asking about specific aspects that I might already have an assumption about, I avoid structuring the question in a leading way, instead try to continue to keep it open ended, but focused, I find the Hypothesis confirming questions tend to be more quantifiable as well. What I’m focused on is getting a confirming or disproving signal against the assumption I’ve made
Examples –
Exploratory question – Can you describe how you typically discover or search for new content related to your startup business?
Hypothesis confirming question – How more or less likely are you to consume, share short form content?