Customer Task Story Timeline Template
Reconstruct a recent customer task through trigger, actions, interruptions and outcome while separating remembered events from researcher interpretation.
When to use this template
Use this after a participant recalls a concrete event and you need to understand where a difficulty occurred rather than jumping straight to a feature request.
Choose another approach when: You want to turn a hypothetical future plan into observed behavior, invent missing steps, or request confidential artifacts the participant cannot share.
Gather these inputs
- A voluntary participant with a specific recent relevant experience.
- Permission-appropriate notes from the conversation.
- A research question about the task sequence or decision context.
Copy and adapt the template
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Worked example
Illustrative example, not a Crany customer result. Replace every example detail with facts you can verify.
In an illustrative interview, a designer recalls sending a client a website-update document after a project handoff. Two days later the client asked where to change a homepage image. The designer searched an old email, sent a direct link and added a note to the document. The timeline identifies the actual interruption and workaround. It does not infer that the client never opened the document or that a new app would have prevented the question. Those remain separate hypotheses for later investigation.
How to use it
- Anchor the conversation to one recent event before asking for a sequence.
- Follow the participant’s account and ask for missing transitions without suggesting a cause.
- Keep reported events, safe artifacts and your interpretation in separate fields.
Check before using it
- A general habit is not substituted for a concrete story.
- Unknown motives or missing steps are not filled in by the researcher.
- The record preserves context without exposing personal or client details.
What to measure
Compare where obstacles arise across distinct stories while preserving exceptions. Repeated narratives can guide further research, but they are not a representative frequency estimate by themselves.
Research and sources
Specific past behavior and task context inform this original timeline. It is not the source author’s interview-snapshot template and does not reproduce their proprietary materials.
- Teresa Torres: Customer Interviews — checked 2026-10-23. Story-based interviews about goals, needs and context; separate discovery from selling.
- Yale: User Interview Example Questions — checked 2026-10-23. Interview structure, current tasks, past experience, alternative workflows and discovery paths.
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