Turn customer interview notes into an evidence table
AI-assisted editorial field note · Educational planning framework
How should I organize customer interview notes?
Use an evidence table that preserves the participant's context, the event described and your interpretation separately. A tidy collection of quotes can conceal inconsistent segments or contradictory accounts. The table should help another teammate understand why you believe a pattern exists and which parts of that belief still need a stronger test.
Put it into practice
Record the context
Capture role, segment and relevant experience without unnecessary personal details. Give the interview an internal identifier so you can trace a note back to its source.
Use a small code set
Start with trigger, workaround, cost, decision role and outcome. Add a code when a new recurring theme appears; avoid creating a category for every sentence.
Retain counterexamples
Add a contradiction column. A customer who is satisfied with the existing workaround may be more informative than another quote agreeing with your preferred story.
Check interpretations together
Have a teammate code a few notes independently. Discuss disagreements and refine definitions before calculating how often a theme appears.
A worked example
Illustrative scenario — not a customer case study
Four interviews mention delayed approvals, but two are agencies and two are internal teams. The evidence table shows agencies lose billable time while internal teams mainly experience scheduling frustration. Splitting the records prevents one broad 'approval problem' label from hiding two different buying contexts.
Make the next decision
Promote a theme to a product hypothesis only when its segment, frequency and practical consequence are clear. Preserve the supporting records so future evidence can challenge the hypothesis.
A mistake to avoid
Interview counts are not representative market statistics. Explain how participants were recruited and avoid presenting a convenience sample as a population percentage.
Should I save full interview recordings?
Only with clear permission and an appropriate handling process. Useful analysis can often rely on anonymized notes; retain no more identifying information than your research needs.
Take the next step
Check the broader business context with the free six-question assessment. Use your own evidence to choose the next action.
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