How the score works

What worked

You delivered a textbook opening: the documentary frame, the no-bad-answers reassurance, and the explicit rewind permission all landed in a single, fluent setup that immediately put the participant at ease and set the right expectations for the depth of conversation that followed.

What to change first

The deciding moment — the specific day, place, and action when the participant actually committed to booking — was never pinned down; you moved from "the window opened" straight to destination alternatives without pausing to reconstruct that scene.

When a participant names the moment a decision became real ("that was the window"), stop and ask where they were and what they physically did next — opened a tab, pulled up a saved photo, sent a message — before moving to any other question.

How usable the interview is

The core story is there: a dormant ten-year bookmark, a wedding conversation that reactivated it, a two-year work push, a window in late May, and a pull toward adventure and solo autonomy. Alternatives (none) and other people (dad, Diane) were asked and answered. The part an analyst needs most is missing, though: the booking itself and what triggered it that day. There is no price, budget or payment, no anxiety about going solo to an unfamiliar region beyond the lockbox, and no real aftermath beyond one summary line. The interviewer drilled into names (the app, the groomsman, Diane) and spent several turns on solo versus group percentages, rather than walking forward through the weeks after the wedding. Good emotional probing around 'adventure' produced the best material, but the purchase decision, the money and the anxiety forces remain a skeleton that needs other interviews beside it.

Habit by habit

• Introduction & rapport100

  You opened with all three unlocking moves: you framed the session as the participant's story with no right or wrong answers, you gave the documentary metaphor to set expectations for detailed questions, and you explicitly gave permission both to skip questions and to rewind and correct earlier answers.

• Timeline reconstruction100

  You rebuilt the full switch as a sequence — finding the dormant habit, the wedding conversation that reactivated it, the work window that opened the door, and the deliberation around adding cities — then read the whole order back for correction and used the stages as a flexible checklist rather than a rigid script.

• Forces of progress86

  You surfaced all four forces — the push of two brutal work years, the pull of Kovár's ruin bars and Strell's musical history, the anxiety of the midnight lockbox arrival, and the habit of solo versus group travel — but you never asked whether anything almost stopped the trip from happening, and you never pinned each force to its own specific moment in time. To reach 100: the do-nothing option asked (optional) (not done); each force tied to a moment (advanced) (not done).

  When the participant told you they looked up nearby hotels 'just in case' while standing in that dark courtyard, that was a resisting-force signal sitting right in front of you. At that moment, ask: 'Was there a point — either that night or earlier when you were booking — where you thought about not going through with it?' That pins an anxiety to a real moment rather than leaving it implied.

• Behavioral specificity67

  You anchored the conversation in a real past episode and recovered the day, place, and people around the wedding moment beautifully, but you slipped into 'why' territory when asking what drove the destination choice, which invites rationalisation rather than a replay of what actually happened. To reach 100: what happened, not why (the opposite happened at "Can you explain it um what made you choose for Eastern Europe and those three cities?").

  Right after the participant said 'it clicked something in my memory because I had saved photos of those exact places in a bookmarking app like ten years earlier', you asked what made them choose Eastern Europe. That was the moment to stay in the scene instead: ask what they did the evening they got home from the wedding — did they open the app that night, or did a few days pass first? Pinning that micro-moment would have replaced the explanation with a replay.

• Buying moment & first use50

  You captured first use well by asking how the trip went in retrospect, but you missed the deciding moment itself — when you asked about alternatives, you jumped straight to destination alternatives rather than slowing down around the exact day, place, and people present when the participant committed to going. To reach 100: the deciding moment: day, place, people, and what was on the table (the opposite happened at "So you picked Kovar, did you also think of alternatives?").

  When the participant told you 'that was the window — that was when I finally felt like I could leave,' that was the deciding moment sitting right in front of you. Right after they described the center stabilizing in late May, ask: where were you when you realized the window had opened — were you at your desk, at home, alone? What did you actually do in that moment — did you open a browser, pull up the bookmarking app, message someone? Pinning that scene would have given you the full deciding moment the criterion asks for.

• Energies83

  You surfaced the emotional energy well by pressing on the feeling triggered at the wedding, and you touched the social dimension by asking about Diane and her name — but you never asked what the trip had to do in practice with any kind of measure, leaving the functional energy uncharted. To reach 100: the functional heard, with a measure (not done).

  When the participant described standing in a dark courtyard at midnight, jet-lagged, pulling up a map to find backup hotels, you moved on to affirming the adventure rather than asking what that moment cost them practically. Right there, you could have asked what they had to manage to make the whole trip happen — days off arranged, budget set aside, logistics handled solo — to surface the functional energy with a real measure.

• Listening and follow-up100

  You consistently built each question from the participant's last answer, read the story back for correction at a key moment, and played their own words back to them — all without loading your questions with embedded answers.

• Unpacking vague words60

  You unpacked 3 of the 20 vague words the customer used: "two really intense years", "pressure had been building", "adventure". Not unpacked: "a lot", "way overdue", "pilgrimage", "recognition", "someday", "chronic", "stable point", "a lot of it just sits there", "outside of your place", "very deliberate", "better", "background hum", "most like myself", "more emotional than I expected", "recalibrated something", "two very heavy years", "a little short". Unpacking about 5 earns full marks, because not every vague word needs it, only the ones the story turns on. To reach 100, pay attention to vague words while the customer speaks and ask what they mean here. A second interviewer who listens along and notes them helps.

  When the participant said Strell 'recalibrated something — like a reset after two very heavy years', you moved straight on. Right there, ask what specifically felt recalibrated: what was different in the days after they got home compared to before they left? The same applies to 'most like myself' — when they used that phrase, ask what 'most like myself' looks like in practice, so you get behaviour rather than a label.

• Closing100

  You closed the interview with all three moves in place: you invited the participant to flag anything missed, gave a warm and genuine thank-you, and proactively asked who else to speak with — then followed up by widening the referral net beyond the immediate trip.