Reference table
Ask about past behavior, not future intentions
Three common hypothetical questions from customer interviews, each rewritten to ask about real past behavior instead. Questions like 'Would you use this?' invite polite guesses, while 'Tell me about a time when...' gets a story you can check. Use it when you review an interview guide before a study, or to show a team why their questions keep producing false positives.
Where this appears
What's in this reference table
| Instead of asking | Ask about what they did |
|---|---|
| Would you use this feature? | Tell me about a time when you needed to [do this task]. |
| How much would you pay? | What are you currently paying for solutions in this space? |
| Will you buy this? | What did you do the last time you faced this problem? |
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Free to use in your docs, decks and posts under CC BY 4.0, as long as you credit Koji with a link to this page. To embed it, paste this into your page:
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<a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/past-behavior-vs-future-intention-interview-questions"><img src="https://www.koji.so/visuals/past-behavior-vs-future-intention-interview-questions/past-behavior-vs-future-intention-interview-questions.png" alt="Table rewriting three hypothetical interview questions, about using a feature, paying and buying, as questions about what the customer actually did." width="1200" height="630" /></a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/past-behavior-vs-future-intention-interview-questions">Ask about past behavior, not future intentions</a>, Koji</p>
