User Research Interview Notes Template

A user research interview notes template: context, how people do the task today, pains and workarounds, quotes exactly as said and first takeaways kept apart from facts. Download it free in Word or PDF, no sign-up, with an example below.

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Dalm is a Mac app that records a meeting — a call or a room — and drafts notes from the transcript. Get early access

User interview notes hold evidence, and evidence has two enemies: opinions and early conclusions. What people say they would do is a guess; what they did last time is a fact, so the template asks how the respondent does the task today and when they last did it. Quotes go down exactly as said, with a timestamp, because a paraphrase is already an interpretation. And interpretation gets its own section at the end, marked as the interviewer’s, so anyone reading the file later can tell what the respondent said from what the team concluded. One file per interview; patterns come from comparing several.

What’s in the template

The file follows one interview from who the respondent is to what the interviewer took away:

• Header — study, respondent ID (an ID, not a full name), segment or profile, interviewer and note-taker, date and format, and consent to record: yes or no.
• Research questions for this study — a list.
• Context — role, environment, tools they use today.
• How they do it today — steps in their own words; the last real time they did it.
• Pains and workarounds — a table: pain, how often or how bad, and current workaround.
• Quotes — a table: quote word for word, topic and timestamp.
• Observations — what they did or showed, separate from what they said.
• Surprises — a list.
• First takeaways — the interviewer’s interpretation.

The template opens with one line on its purpose: notes from one user interview — who the respondent is, how they do the task today, where it hurts, and exact quotes.

User interview notes example

Example (fictional). The respondent and events are invented.

Study	How small teams keep track of meeting decisions
Respondent ID	R-04
Segment	Team lead, design agency, 8 people
Interviewer / note-taker	Marina / Sergey
Date, format	6 November, video call, 45 min
Consent to record	yes

Research questions

1. Where do decisions from meetings end up today?
2. What happens when a decision is forgotten?

Context
Runs 6–8 client calls a week; team uses a chat app and a shared drive.

How they do it today
Writes key points in a paper notebook during calls, then types a short summary into the team chat “if there’s time”. Last week skipped it for two of five calls.

Pains and workarounds

Pain	How often	Workaround
Client says “we agreed on X” and nobody can check	About monthly	Searches old emails

Quotes

Quote	Topic	Time
“The notebook is where decisions go to die.”	Storage	12:40
“I don’t need a transcript. I need the three things we agreed on.”	Output	27:15

Observations
Showed the notebook on camera: no dates on most pages.

Surprises

• Doesn’t want recordings kept — would delete after the summary.

First takeaways

• Value is in a short list of agreements, not full notes (one respondent — check across others).

Two things here are worth copying. “How they do it today” describes the last real week — two of five calls skipped — instead of asking whether the respondent would like something better. And the only takeaway says how much it rests on: one respondent, to be checked against the others, which keeps a single strong quote from turning into a finding too early.

How to fill it in

User interview notes are useful only if the next person can trust them. The five rules in the template protect that trust: quotes stay verbatim, past behaviour counts for more than opinions, interpretation stays in its own section, nothing uncertain is pinned on a particular person, and personal data stays out unless the study needs it.

1. Quotes exactly as said. A paraphrased quote is no longer evidence.
2. Past behaviour over opinions. “Last time you did it, what happened?” beats “Would you use…?”
3. Keep interpretation in its own section, so facts and conclusions don’t mix.
4. Don’t attribute uncertain statements. If you’re not sure who said it in a group, leave it unattributed.
5. No personal data you don’t need. Use respondent IDs.

Consent to record

The template has a consent field in the header: ask before the interview starts and write down the answer. What you need to ask, and how, depends on where you and the respondent are and how the interview is held, so check the rules that apply to your study. An overview of recording consent laws is a starting point.

User interview or another kind of interview

You need	Use
Evidence from people who use a product: behaviour, pains, exact quotes	This user research interview notes template
What a person inside the organisation needs from a project: goals, requirements, constraints	Stakeholder interview template

Every other template is on the templates page.

If you would rather not take notes at all

You can fill in this template by hand. If you would rather keep your attention on the respondent, Dalm is a Mac app that records the meeting — a call, or a conversation in the room through the Mac’s microphone — and drafts notes from the transcript to start from. The draft is its own document rather than this template filled in: you correct it line by line and save it as PDF, Word (.docx) or Markdown.

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