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User Research Session Template

General 60 min As needed One moderator, one notetaker, and one participant per session

User research watches real people use your product so you learn what actually happens, not what people say happens. This user research template gives you a usability testing script and a moderator guide so a single one-on-one session produces honest behavioral signal you can act on.

When to use it

Run usability sessions whenever you have a prototype, a flow, or a live product you want to improve. It is the right tool for finding where users get stuck, validating a redesign, or checking whether a new feature is discoverable. Use it before you ship, then again after, because watching five users will teach you more than a hundred guesses.

Who attends

Each session has one moderator who guides and stays mostly quiet, one notetaker who captures behavior and quotes, and one participant who fits your target user. Test one person at a time so nobody performs for the group. Five sessions per round usually surfaces the majority of serious issues.

How to run it

Open by making clear you are testing the product, not the person, and ask them to think aloud. Warm up with context questions, then give realistic tasks one at a time and go quiet. The hardest discipline is not helping when they struggle. Their struggle is the data. Probe afterward against what you saw, then debrief immediately to capture issues and severity.

Questions to ask

  • How do you handle this today? Walk me through your current process.
  • What would you do first to accomplish this task? (then stay silent)
  • What are you thinking right now? (when they pause or hesitate)
  • What did you expect to happen when you clicked that?
  • On a scale where this is easy or hard, how did that feel, and why?
  • If you could change one thing about this, what would it be?
  • Was anything confusing or surprising that you did not mention?

Common mistakes

  • Leading the user to the answer instead of watching them find it.
  • Jumping in to help the moment they struggle and erasing the insight.
  • Asking what they would do instead of giving them a task to do.
  • Testing with people who do not match the real target user.
  • Trusting opinions over observed behavior when the two disagree.

Keep your tasks, findings, and severity ratings together across rounds. Run it in OrgTP.

Agenda

60 minutes total · 5 sections

  1. Intro and consent 5 min
    Welcome the participant, explain you are testing the product not them, get recording consent, and ask them to think aloud throughout.
  2. Background questions 10 min
    Ask a few warm-up questions about how they currently handle the task so you understand their context before they touch anything.
  3. Task-based testing 30 min
    Give realistic tasks one at a time. Stay quiet and watch. Resist helping. Capture where they hesitate, click wrong, or get stuck.
  4. Post-task questions 10 min
    Probe what they expected, where it felt confusing, and what they would change. Anchor every question to what you just watched.
  5. Debrief notes 5 min
    Moderator and notetaker capture top usability issues, severity, and standout quotes while the session is fresh.

Run this meeting live in OrgTP

Stop copying agendas into a doc every week. OrgTP runs your meetings live — scorecard, rocks, issues, and to-dos all in one place, with your AI agents in the room.