Research methods
Qualitative research interview questions: how to write and order them
Turn research questions into open interview questions, probe what you don't understand and order questions from broad to specific. Includes example rewrites.
Good qualitative research interview questions start from what you need to learn, ask people to describe real experiences in their own words, and move from broad to specific. Most of an interview is built from three kinds of question: a few broad story prompts you prepare in advance, probes that follow up on what the person just said, and short closed questions that pin down details.
If you want a ready list for talking to potential customers, use our customer interview questions. This page covers how to write and order your own questions for any qualitative interview, whether you are talking to users, buyers or industry practitioners.
Turn research questions into interview questions
Your research question is what you want to know. Your interview question is what you actually say to the participant. They are rarely the same sentence.
Suppose you are researching how warehouse managers decide when to hire temporary staff. Your research question might be: "What triggers the decision to bring in temporary workers, and who makes it?" Asking that directly invites a tidy, general answer. Instead, ask about an event: "Tell me about the last time you brought in temporary staff. What was going on that week?"
GOV.UK's guide to in-depth interviews suggests the same route: review the research questions, list the topics you need to cover, put them in a logical order, and write a starter question and possible follow-ups for each topic. Then test the guide by interviewing a colleague and fix anything that confuses them.
Use open questions to start each topic
Open questions let people answer in their own words and tell you things you did not think to ask. NN/g's article on open and closed questions suggests stems such as:
- Walk me through how you...
- Tell me about a time when...
- Tell me a bit about...
Questions that begin with "how" or "what" tend to stay open. Questions that begin with "did," "was" or "is" tend to close the answer down and can suggest the answer you expect.
| Leading or closed | Open version |
|---|---|
| Was the peak season stressful? | How did the last peak season go? |
| Do you use an agency for temporary staff? | How do you find temporary staff when you need them? |
| Would faster onboarding help? | What happens on a temporary worker's first day? |
| Is the approval process slow? | What happens between asking for extra staff and having them on the floor? |
Probe what you do not yet understand
Most of the useful material comes from follow-ups, which you cannot fully script. Listen for a word or step you do not understand and ask about it. Useful probes include:
- You said... when was that?
- Can you tell me more about that?
- What do you mean by "short-staffed"?
- What happened next?
- Why do you think that happened?
GOV.UK recommends focusing on stories and real examples, not generalities or how things should work, and keeping quiet so the participant does most of the talking.
Order questions from broad to specific
NN/g calls this the funnel technique. Start each topic with a broad open question, follow up with open probes, and only then ask narrow closed questions such as "How many temporary workers did you bring in?" or "Did you approve that yourself?" Asking specific questions too early can steer what people tell you.
The same article says an interview guide usually has 5 to 8 main open questions, each followed by follow-ups. That is a helpful ceiling. If your guide has 25 main questions, you will rush through them and have no time to probe.
A simple structure for your guide
- Introduction: who you are, what the research is for, and consent to record if you plan to. See our recording consent guide.
- Warm-up: an easy question about their role or work.
- Main topics: your 5 to 8 open questions, each with two or three planned probes.
- Wrap-up: "Is there anything I should have asked but didn't?" and a check on anything you did not follow.
For a timed version of this structure built for early customer discovery, see the 30-minute interview script. If you are interviewing people in an industry you do not know well, the unfamiliar industry question guide adds questions about vocabulary and context.
Before your first interview
Read your guide aloud once and cut any question that assumes the answer. Then check that each main question traces back to something you need to decide.
You also need people who have done the work recently. For the warehouse example, a directory page such as operations professionals in warehousing shows the kind of roles to look for, or you can describe them in a people search. Instant Expert finds people whose work matches your question. You review them, it sends the invitations, and you pay for each call that gets booked.