QInsights offers five analysis options for different qualitative data and different analytic goals. Some give you a structured overview of your material; others support a more focused or interactive exploration.
Which one to choose depends on your data and what you want to find out - a broad map of the main topics, a case-by-case comparison, an open-ended exploration through dialogue, or evaluative language in short-text feedback.
| Analysis | Formats | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Theme Analysis | Word, PDF, Excel | A first structured overview of the main topics in your data |
| Conversational Analysis | Word, PDF, Excel | Open, researcher-led exploration through dialogue with Q |
| Guided Conversational Analysis | Word, PDF, Excel | Step-by-step exploration of a single topic, with Q suggesting questions |
| Grid Analysis | Word, PDF | Comparing what individual respondents said, case by case |
| Sentiment Analysis | Excel | Evaluative language in open-ended survey or feedback data |
Theme Analysis (docx, PDF, Excel)
Theme Analysis scans your data to identify recurring topics, ideas, and patterns. QInsights groups related content into themes, generates a title for each theme, and provides a short description supported by references from the data. It is useful when you want a first structured overview of the main issues in a dataset.
Grid Analysis (docx, PDF)
Grid Analysis helps you compare what individual respondents have said about a question or topic. The results are displayed case by case, making it easier to review similarities, differences, and patterns across interviews or focus groups. It is especially useful when the respondent perspective needs to remain visible.
Conversational Analysis (docx, PDF, Excel)
Conversational Analysis is an open, interactive way of working with your data. You ask questions, refine them, and follow up on emerging insights while QInsights retrieves and analyses relevant material from the dataset. It is useful when you want to explore the data in a flexible and researcher-led way.
Guided Conversational Analysis (docx, PDF, Excel)
Guided Conversational Analysis supports you step by step in exploring a theme or topic in more depth. Instead of starting with your own prompt, QInsights guides the process by suggesting a structured sequence of analytic questions. This helps you move from an initial overview to a more focused interpretation of patterns, differences, and underlying meanings in the data.
Sentiment Analysis for semi-structured data (Excel)
Sentiment Analysis for semi-structured data examines evaluative expressions in open-ended responses. Rather than limiting the analysis to positive, negative, or neutral, QInsights allows you to define the dimensions you want to analyse, such as satisfaction, frustration, or trust, in relation to a specific topic. This is especially useful for survey comments and other short-text feedback.
A Typical Workflow
- Run a Theme Analysis first to map the main topics in your data.
- Pick a theme worth exploring and open Guided Conversational Analysis, or go straight to Conversational Analysis if you already know what you want to ask.
- Use Grid Analysis when you need to keep the respondent-by-respondent perspective visible, for example when following your interview guide question by question.
- For spreadsheet-based feedback, use Sentiment Analysis to classify evaluative language across custom dimensions you define.
Every completed analysis is saved to the Analysis Archive, where you can reopen it, continue a follow-up chat, or organize it into folders.
For guidance on how to phrase questions well across any of these modes, see Prompting Strategies and Analytic Questions and Templates.