Conducting Thematic Analysis — Part Two

Discussing the 6 phases of conducting Thematic Analysis — Part Two.

As the second part of conducting thematic analysis, I want to encourage readers to first understand the challenges involved with organizing and analyzing qualitative data in this article. It’ll also be a good idea to look at yesterday’s article — part one of conducting thematic analysis — to see the discussion on the first 3 phases of thematic analysis.

The first 3 phases of thematic analysis involved preparing our data for efficient analysis, and drafting an overview on our qualitative insights. For the latter 3 phases, we’ll find ourselves working more hands-on with synthesizing data into themes, and using them to facilitate for our design solutions moving forward.

Today’s article will look to wrap up the 6 phases of thematic analysis by discussing the latter 3 phases.

FOUR | Finding Themes

After we’ve transposed detailed information (from transcripts, observations, and notes) into summarized forms for the affinity map sticky notes or for the data insight analysis software, we can start to explore correlations.

What we want to find are similarities and relationships between our participants’ thoughts and behaviours. We can also note down any opposing differences, as they can serve to outline any insights from any atypical users — that might help us address future needs and pain points.