A balanced interview covers five stages — opener, behaviour, motivation, pain, close. Each question slot comes pre-filled with a well-formed example you can keep, edit, or replace. Export the finished guide as markdown.
Opener: lower the stakes with easy, factual questions. Build rapport. 2–3 minutes.
Behaviour: ask about recent, specific actions. "Tell me about the last time you..." outperforms "Do you usually..." every time. Humans misreport habits; they can retell events.
Motivation: dig into the "why". What triggered the behaviour? What were you hoping would happen? What did success look like?
Pain: surface friction. What was frustrating? What took longer than expected? Where did you give up or work around?
Close: open the floor. Give the participant control. Capture anything that didn't fit the structure.
Related: user interviews guide, research plan builder, JTBD for a switch-interview variant.