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Focus on Insights, Not Notes: Simon Says Enables Researchers

Qualitative, primary research is conducted to serve a host of purposes such as:

  • customer development
  • assess a product's or service's efficacy
  • to test and evaluate hypotheses.

The ultimate goal is to gain a better understanding of the people, problems, ideas, or events at hand, and interviews are often the best way to do so.

Once you've lined up your interviewees, scheduled a mutually convenient time, and arranged a location (phone or in person, Skype or hangouts or other), there's a big problem that gets in the way: note taking.

Note taking is both pivotal and frustrating in that it disrupts your presence as you furiously scribble notes of what the person just said, trying to keep it verbatim and fair to the tone of the point they described. All the while, they've moved on to their next important piece of feedback and you are trying to store that in your memory, hoping they will pause for a moment and allowing you to catch up.

Either you have to learn to write faster or you can use our solution: record the interview and transcribe it later on Simon Says.

Simon Says offers swift, automated and accurate transcription. Upload your files and they transcribe in minutes, ready for you to bookmark and annotate the key nuggets from your interview.

Then you can listen to the key portions as many times as you need to, allowing you the focus on discovering the insights.

We also have these additional and relevant features:

  • Transcripts are speaker separated and timecoded.
  • Export to Microsoft Word and Excel.
  • Share transcripts with your colleagues and within a team.
  • You can even share the primary research with notes/bookmarks with your client.

For a longer list of features, see here.

Tips for increasing transcript accuracy:

  • One person should speak at a time.
  • Ideally each speaker has their own microphone but if there is only one, put it closest the main interviewee.

For more tips to improve accuracy, see here.

Next time you are doing research interviews and you want to be attentive, listening thoughtfully to your subject's responses, record it instead. Focus on being engaged and asking the deeper questions, and leave the transcribing to us.

To start uncovering your meaningful dialogue, sign up to Simon Says (includes 15 mins of free credit).

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