The Craft of the Open Versus Closed Question
Launch library · evergreen read
An open question invites a subject to shape their own answer largely in their own words, while a closed question narrows the field down to a specific fact or a simple confirmation, and genuinely good interviewing uses both deliberately rather than defaulting to one particular style out of habit or nervousness alone.
Open questions tend to work best early in a conversation, when the goal is discovering what actually matters to a subject rather than confirming what an interviewer already privately assumes, while closed questions work best later, once a specific detail needs pinning down precisely for the sake of accuracy in the finished piece.
Mixing the two skilfully throughout, rather than simply running through a fixed list of one type from start to finish, keeps an interview feeling like a genuine conversation instead of a formal interrogation, which in turn tends to produce noticeably richer material overall for the finished piece.