Actionable Synthesis is a way to synthesize data about user behavior to make it actionable for product teams.
It works best with product teams that are conducting qualitative research regularly as a part of their iterations, and can also be used to integrate quantitative data points when forming patterns.
- Allows you to visualize a throughline from user problems & needs back to patterns of behavior, and the facts from research supporting them.
- Visualizes the problem space by expressing insights as problems & needs. This turns insights into modular components, makes it clear how to move into framing solutions, and share insights across different teams.
- Prioritizes connecting patterns, problems & needs with action items that can be assigned to members of the team and acted upon immediately.
1. Highlight Transcripts
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First we tag raw data, such as transcripts, so that highlights can be easily grouped together.
These tags could for example match key topic areas or questions that were the focus of the research. If it is an evaluative interview, they could be the name of the screen the user was on, or the feature they were interacting with.
This can be done manually or sped up with tools such as Dovetail, that provide automatic transcription of interview videos.
2. Group highlights together
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Next we group these highlights by their shared tags.
At this stage, I like to do affinity mapping in either FigJam or Miro, because it is easy to visualize the connections you make. I use color to represent each interviewee.
To bring highlighted transcripts into FigJam or Miro, you can export them as an CSV, and paste multiple at once to create sticky notes.
3. Summarize as facts
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At this point, you can choose to summarize sets of highlights as facts. This makes them easier to digest when we start looking for patterns.
Summaries are factual. It can help to try and only use the same words as the interviewee, to avoid adding your own interpretations at this stage.
I like to use an identifier like the interviewee’s name as the subject of the fact, for example:
“Guss finds it difficult to remember the words his teacher taught him in his previous lesson by the end of the week.”
4. Identify Patterns
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Now go through your facts, group by group, and look for patterns: something that is factually true across multiple facts.
A good rule of thumb is that if you interviewed 5 or more people, wider patterns start to show up with 3 or more interviewees.
I like to phrase the pattern with a consistent persona name the team is using.
“Intermediate language learners do not retain many of the new words that come up during in-lesson conversations.”
5. Identify Problems
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Now it’s time to derive insights. A problem statement is a specific way of writing an insight, that is helpful for building journey maps and user scenarios down the road.
I like to use the following format:
PERSONA has a problem with X, this is because Y.
Connect your problems with patterns that show you what their pain point is, and tell you why it is a pain point. This level of specificity helps us frame our solutions down the road.
“Intermediate learners have a problem retaining new words. This is because they come up in conversation, and they are unable to note them without halting the flow of the conversation.”
6. Identify underlying needs
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Behind everyone problem statement there is a need, often called a ‘job to be done’. It is possible to map multiple problems to an underlying need. This shows us which validated problems we must solve in our design, to meet their need.
I like to use the following format: Persona has need X, because Y.
PERSONA needs X, so that Y.
“Guss needs to know which words were new to him in a lesson, so that he can study them before the next lesson.”
7. Identify Action Items
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Any need, problem or pattern is an opportunity for us to take action within the team. By associating assignable action items with parts of the synthesis, we can garuntee key insights result in the next steps we take.
For problems and needs, some common action items might be:
- update the journey map to reflect new problems and needs
- run a design jam to come up with solutions for these new problems with the team
- decide with business the priority of this need for our product strategy
For patterns, especially if you were synthesizing evaluative research, some action items might be:
- Prioritize the feature in to this pattern next in our development backlog
- Rethink this aspect of the solution for our next evalulative prototype
- Revise the phrasing here so it fits the user’s mental model better
8. Frame our insights
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Problems and needs can be framed using a number of different frameworks, to create alignment amongst product team members.
Journey Maps
You can line up problems and needs in the order they occur, to visualize a journey map. Using validated problem statements gives you confidence that your journey map is based on verifiable research.
User Scenarios (Current & Future)
To help with creating empathy before design ideation, you can zoom in on a moment of the user’s journey, and write out the details of the current pain points as a narrated story.
Outcome-based Roadmaps
You can associate outcomes in your product roadmap with the user need you seek to address, and underlying problems the team is testing solutions for, to meet that need.
9. Share Conclusions
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When sharing your conclusions with those outside of the team, you can take advantage of the tracable nature of your synthesis conclusions to tell a convincing story about user behavior and connect it to product hypotheses.
For example, when introducing what you want to do next, you can trace the underlying problem you are solving back to its supporting patterns.
By showing your supporting patterns and how they are backed up by research, others can follow your logic and be more inclined to trust your conclusions.
