Coding interviews with Microsoft OneNote

Sample interview transcripts in OneNote

We do a lot of one-on-one interviews for our projects (50 or more is not uncommon for a large project). And while this gives us much valuable information, we're always challenged with extracting the key points from notes and transcripts.

In the past this has meant reviewing transcripts and transcribing points by hand onto post-it notes, and then grouping these into themes. It's a time-consuming and somewhat haphazard process.

Here's where Microsoft's OneNote comes in. OneNote lets you capture any kind of note (text, drawings, audio, video) and then annotate it in different ways.

This is how I use the annotation feature to code and summarize interview notes:

1. Set up a folder for your project in OneNote.
2. Set up sections for each group of interview subjects (e.g., Staff, Customers, Partners, etc.) in your new folder.
3. Create a page for each interviewee, and type your notes as you're interviewing (or have an assistant do it). In the above screen shot, I've got a folder for my client "BigCo," and sections for staff, partner and customer interviews.
4. Try to use a separate bullet point for each statement. OneNote lets you flag each bullet point independently; this is helpful for coding comments later.
5. Set up your note flags. Under Format > Note Flags > Customize Note Flags, create note flags for every significant theme that arose in your interviews. If you want to be extra fancy, use keyboard shortcuts for the most common flags.
   
   The Customize Note Flags task pane with some sample themes.
6. Now go back to your notes and code each statement with your note flags. OneNote lets you assign multiple flags to each point, and obviously you'll ignore some altogether. You can use the keyboard shortcuts, the Note Flag toolbar (below), or Right Click > Note Flags.
   
   The note flag toolbar
7. Once you're done that, open up the Note Flag Summary Task Pane (View > Toolbars > Task Panes) and then select Note Flag Summary from the Task Pane drop-down menu.
8. Now, set Search to "Current Section" and Group note flags to "Note Flag Name" and then click "Create Summary Page."
   
   The Note Flag Summary task pane. Click that "Create Summary Page" button, and you're done.
9. Voilà, you've got a thematic summary of all significant statements in the interview group. Repeat for your other sections.
10. If you re-code your transcripts, just delete your original summary page and create a new one.

I've found this technique really valuable for dealing with lots of interview notes in a systematic way. I can make changes easily, and if I need to include summarized notes in a report I can just save the page as a Word document. Plus I can track comments back to the people who made them.