UX in the Head on YouTube · Open on YouTube
Core skills: the UX process · Advanced beginner · Lesson 20 of 99 · 13 min video, then about 3 hours of practice
Synthesis: from raw notes to personas and jobs
After this you can turn a pile of interview notes into grouped themes, and express who you are designing for as either a persona or a job to be done.
Why it matters
Synthesis is where research becomes design input, and it is the step beginners skip. Affinity mapping (one observation per sticky, group, name the groups) is the workhorse technique. Then choose your output: personas describe *who*, jobs to be done describe *what progress someone is trying to make*, and JTBD is often more useful because it survives demographic differences. Traps: inventing personas from imagination and giving them stock photos and a favourite coffee order, which reviewers read as decoration; and grouping stickies by topic rather than by insight, which produces categories instead of findings.
How to use this resource
Covers the actual mechanics of getting from transcripts to themes, which most content skips in favour of the pretty output.