Generating user research questions

Generate a full user interview guide for any product and persona in seconds.

Good user research starts with good questions. But writing an interview guide from scratch takes time — and it’s easy to end up with leading questions or gaps in coverage. This prompt generates a complete interview guide: warm-up, behavioural, motivational, scenario-based, future-state, and closing questions, plus follow-up prompts to dig deeper. Just fill in 6 inputs and get a guide ready to run.

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How the prompt works

The system prompt sets the LLM up as a senior UX researcher and requires six question categories in every response. Without that structure, models return a generic list of questions instead of a guide a researcher can follow end-to-end. The user prompt takes six variables — product, persona label, persona description, current challenges, research goals, and interview focus — so every question is relevant to the specific user and product being studied.

System prompt

Sets the LLM’s role and defines the six question categories it must always include in the output.

You are an expert UX Researcher and Product Manager with 10+ years of experience conducting user interviews. Your task is to generate thoughtful, open-ended interview questions that uncover deep user insights and hidden needs.

Create a comprehensive interview guide that includes:

1. Warm-up questions: Build rapport and ease users into the conversation.
2. Behavioural questions: Understand current user workflows and pain points.
3. Motivational questions: Explore underlying needs, goals, and frustrations.
4. Scenario-based questions: Test assumptions and explore edge cases.
5. Future-state questions: Understand aspirations and ideal solutions.
6. Closing questions: Capture additional insights and feedback.

Focus on open-ended questions that encourage storytelling, avoid leading questions, and probe for specific examples. Include follow-up prompts to dig deeper into user responses and uncover unexpected insights.

User prompt

Six variables that give the model enough context to generate questions specific to the user and the product being researched.

Generate user interview questions for {{product_name}} targeting {{user_persona}}:

- User persona: {{persona_description}}
- Product challenges: {{current_challenges}}
- Research goals: {{research_objectives}}
- Interview focus: {{specific_focus_areas}}

Sample output: BudgetWise Personal Finance App

User interview guide — busy working parents

Warm-up questions

• Tell me about your family and what a typical weekday looks like for you.
• How do you and your partner typically handle household decisions?

Behavioural questions

• Walk me through the last time you made a significant family purchase. What was your thought process?
• How do you currently keep track of your family’s spending? Show me if you use any tools or apps.
• Describe a recent situation where you felt stressed about money. What triggered that feeling?
• When do you typically think about your family’s finances during the week?

Motivational questions

• What are your biggest financial goals for your family right now?
• Tell me about a time when you felt really good about your family’s financial situation. What made that moment special?
• What keeps you up at night when it comes to your family’s finances?
• If money wasn’t a concern, what would change about your daily routine?

Scenario-based questions

• Imagine your child needs unexpected school supplies worth $200. Walk me through how you’d handle that situation.
• If you had 10 extra minutes each day to focus on finances, what would you do with that time?
• Your friend asks for advice on family budgeting. What’s the first thing you’d tell them?

Future-state questions

• Describe your ideal relationship with money and budgeting in your family.
• What would make you excited to open a budgeting app every day?
• If you could solve one financial challenge for your family, what would it be?

Closing questions

• What’s one thing about managing family finances that you wish more people understood?
• Is there anything about your financial situation or habits that we haven’t covered?
• Any questions for me about what we’re building?

Follow-up prompts

• “Can you give me a specific example of that?”
• “How did that make you feel?”
• “What would have made that situation easier?”
• “Tell me more about why that’s important to you.”
• “What happens if you don’t address that issue?”

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Import into Adaline

This prompt comes with a ready-to-import Adaline project file. It includes the prompt, dataset, and evaluators, all pre-configured.

Download & import into Adaline

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Evaluations and dataset

Each prompt in the library ships with a dataset and evaluators so you can test quality before deploying.

Evaluators

Two failure modes, three evaluators: one for completeness, one for question quality, one for length.

Guide completeness

Checks that all six question categories are present in every output.

Goal: The interview guide must include all six question categories.

Checks:
- Warm-up questions to build rapport are present
- Behavioural questions about current workflows and pain points are present
- Motivational questions about underlying needs and goals are present
- Scenario-based questions to test assumptions are present
- Future-state questions about aspirations and ideal solutions are present
- Closing questions to capture additional insights are present

Scoring guidance:
- 1: Missing 3 or more categories.
- 2: Missing 2 categories.
- 3: All categories present but some have fewer than 2 questions or lack depth.
- 4: All categories present with solid question variety; minor gaps.
- 5: All categories fully present with multiple questions and follow-up prompts.

Question quality

Checks that questions are open-ended, non-leading, and designed to surface specific user behaviours.

Goal: Questions must be open-ended, non-leading, and designed to surface specific user behaviours and experiences.

Checks:
- Questions are open-ended (starting with "Tell me", "Walk me through", "Describe", "How", "What")
- No leading questions that assume a specific answer or outcome
- At least one follow-up prompt is included to dig deeper
- Questions reference the specific persona, product, or challenges provided
- Scenario-based questions use realistic, product-relevant situations

Scoring guidance:
- 1: Most questions are closed or leading; no follow-up prompts.
- 2: Some open-ended questions but several are leading or generic.
- 3: Mostly open-ended; a few leading questions or missing follow-ups.
- 4: Consistently open-ended with good follow-up prompts; minor issues.
- 5: All questions are open-ended, non-leading, persona-specific, and include follow-up prompts.

Response length

Guards against bloated output. An interview guide should be usable in a real session without overwhelming the researcher.

Rule: Output must be less than 1,000 tokens.

A good interview guide is focused and easy to follow in the moment. If it’s too long, researchers won’t stick to it.

Dataset

Four product types across different industries — each row maps directly to the six variables in the user prompt.

Product	User persona	Persona description	Product challenges	Research goals	Interview focus
BudgetWise: Personal Finance App	Busy working parents	Working parents aged 30–45, household income $60K–$120K, managing family expenses, limited time for financial planning	Low engagement after setup, users abandon budget creation midway, difficulty categorising family expenses	Understand daily money management routines, identify barriers to consistent budgeting, discover motivation triggers	Daily financial habits, family expense decision-making, budgeting pain points
HealthTrack Pro: Fitness Tracking App	Gym-going millennials	Adults aged 22–35 who work out 3–5 times per week, mix of gym and home workouts, tracking progress toward body composition goals	Users log workouts inconsistently, low adoption of nutrition tracking, high churn after 60 days	Understand what motivates consistent logging, identify friction in the tracking flow, discover what success looks like for this persona	Workout habits and routines, motivation and accountability, barriers to daily app use
CollabSpace: Remote Work Platform	Distributed team managers	Team leads managing 5–15 people across 3+ time zones, responsible for delivery, morale, and cross-functional coordination	Teams default to Slack threads over structured workflows, async updates get missed, managers feel out of the loop	Understand how managers track team progress today, identify gaps in current tools, discover what “visibility” means to them	Daily team management routines, async communication challenges, what visibility and trust look like remotely
LegalEase: Document Management	Solo lawyers and paralegals	Independent legal practitioners and paralegals at small firms (1–5 people), handling contracts, filings, and client correspondence	Documents stored across email, Drive, and local folders, version control issues, time lost searching for files	Understand current document workflows, identify the biggest sources of wasted time, discover what a trusted system looks like	Day-to-day document handling, collaboration with clients, pain points around search and version history