Browse analysis

Analysis groups responses into themes, scores sentiment, and pulls representative quotes across every completed interview. Each quote links back to the source moment.

How sentiment, themes, and coded categories work

• Themes are patterns the AI detected across multiple interviews, e.g. "users distrust the pricing page" or "screen share permissions confuse Mac users." Each theme lists the participants who exhibit it and pulls quotes.
• Sentiment is shown per theme as Positive, Neutral, or Negative.
• Coded categories are how Strella turns open-ended answers into something countable. The AI reads every participant's response to a question and assigns each one to a mutually-exclusive, collectively-exhaustive bucket, the same kind of work a researcher would do by hand when "coding" open-ended survey responses.

Steps

1. Open Results → Analysis

   Two pills at the top let you switch between By objective and By question.

   • By objective: themes are organized under each of your research objectives. Best for storytelling around what you set out to learn.
   • By question: themes are organized under each interview question. Best for diving into a specific moment ("what did everyone say about X?").
2. Read the AI summary for each objective or question

   At the top of each section, the AI writes a one-paragraph synthesis of what participants said. Below it, each theme appears with its participants, quotes, and an auto-generated highlight reel.

3. Click into a theme

   Each theme shows:

   • The theme name and a one-line description.
   • How many participants exhibit it (as a count and percentage of total).
   • Aggregate sentiment.
   • Representative quotes: click any quote to jump to that moment in the source interview.
4. Filter who's included

   The filter button (top right) narrows every number, theme, and quote on the page to the participants you pick. The same filter bar appears on the Interviews list. Stack as many rules as you need. Each option shows a live count of how many participants it matches. Strella leaves out options nobody in the study has, such as a share link no one used, and any filter with nothing to pick.

   Suggested filters mirror how you recruited:

   • Audience: the share link or panel order a participant came through. When two share a name, each shows its source in brackets, such as "Spring wave (Respondent)".
   • Quota: the quota cell they filled. To see which cells still need participants, check your quotas on the Recruit tab.
   • Participant name: find one person fast.

   More filters cover who participants are and how the interview went: demographics, screener answers, in-call survey answers, tags, duration, interview quality, variant assignment, task results, recruitment source, and Device (Desktop web, Mobile web, or Mobile app).

   Number answers, such as an NPS score or a rating, default to is one of, so you tick the scores you want the same way as a multiple choice answer. The list also offers Greater than, less than, and between.

   The page link stores your filters, so copying the URL shares the exact filtered view with a teammate.

   Option counts show how many participants each choice would select. A participant with no value for a field appears under no option (for example, an imported interview carries no device), so a field's counts can add up to less than the participant total.

5. Compare segments side by side

   On the By question view, Compare (beside Filter) splits every chart into two or more groups of participants you define, so you can read them next to each other instead of flipping between filters.

   1. Click Compare. Segment A is ready to set up.
   2. Give each segment its rules, using the same fields as the filter. Strella labels each segment from its rules, for example Mobile or Not Enterprise. A participant must match all of a segment's rules. Click And between two rules to switch it to Or, so anyone matching any one rule is in the segment. Each segment shows how many participants it holds as you build it. A segment with no rules is everyone.
   3. Click Add segment for more, or Duplicate in a segment's ⋮ menu to copy it. The same menu deletes the segment. The trash icon on a rule removes just that rule, so you can copy a segment and change only what differs. Then click Compare. Segments are lettered A to Z.

   Two shortcuts save setting segments up one at a time:

   • Make each option a segment, at the bottom of a question's answer list, gives every answer its own segment. The segment you're in keeps its answer, or takes the first one if none is picked. Strella adds a segment for each answer still missing and skips answers another segment already covers. The segment's other rules carry into each new one.
   • Add everyone else adds a segment holding everyone who isn't in your other segments, so comparing a group against the rest takes one rule instead of two. Beside a single segment, Strella labels it as the opposite, for example Not Mobile.

   Segments split whatever the page filter already shows, so the filter narrows everyone first and the segments divide what remains. A participant who matches two segments counts in both.

   While comparing, each chart draws one bar, tile, or box per segment: multiple choice, rating scale and slider answers, NPS, ranking, coded responses, themes, sentiment, time on task, and pass rate. Every share is out of that segment's own participants who answered. The Paths chart, Emotional responses, and the By objective view stay unsplit.

   Hover a segment's letter anywhere on the page to see its rules and size. The page link stores the comparison, so copying the URL shares it, and it stays in place as you move between questions. To go back to one view, open Compare and choose Clear segments.

   Downloads follow the comparison: each chart's spreadsheet includes a By segment sheet, and participant rows carry a Segments column.

6. Sort a chart's bars

   On the By question view, the sort button (the A to Z icon) beside a chart's ⋯ menu reorders that chart's bars. Each kind of chart offers its own orders:

   • Multiple choice: Participants (Most participants or Fewest participants) or Display order, the order the question lists its options. The chart opens on Most participants. A question with Randomize on offers Participants only, because each participant saw the options in a shuffled order.
   • Rating scale: Scale order or Participants. The chart opens on Scale order.
   • Slider: Value (Lowest first or Highest first) or Participants. The chart opens on Lowest first.

   Other answers and a multi-select question's "none of the above" choice stay at the bottom whatever their count. While comparing segments, the sort counts each participant once, even when they belong to two segments.

   The sort applies to that one chart and resets when you reload the page. Download image captures the chart as sorted; the spreadsheet downloads don't follow the sort.

7. Review participant responses

   Below the charts, Participant responses lists everyone included, one row per participant. Type in Search to narrow it by name, summary, answer, coded category, or filter value. Downloads, Expand all, and selection follow the search. The table has these columns:

   • the participant's answer
   • each coded category for the question
   • the value behind each active filter
   • task result and time on task, for tasks
   • interview duration, sentiment, and date

   While comparing, a Segment column shows which segments each participant belongs to. The table scrolls sideways when there are many columns.

   Click a row to open that participant's summary and their transcript for this question right below it. From the row's … menu, Play recording starts their recording in a small player, and View interview opens the full interview.

8. Refresh themes (when needed)

   From the actions menu, choose Refresh themes. Three scopes:

   • All: re-run both objective and question analysis.
   • By objective: re-run only objective grouping.
   • By question: re-run only question grouping.

   Strella refreshes themes automatically as interviews come in. Refresh manually after big edits, such as changed objectives or excluded interviews.

Things to know

• Statements (the "I'm going to show you a concept" kind) aren't analyzed; only Ask-group steps produce themes.
• Excluded interviews don't appear in the participant count, the themes, or the quotes. See Review a single interview for how to exclude.
• In-call survey responses show as a section above the qualitative themes: distribution charts plus the raw counts.
• Questions you remove from the guide keep their data. When a guide edit deletes a question (often when the AI assistant swaps one for a near-identical version), the answers already captured for it appear under a Removed from guide group in the By question dropdown, so that data stays reachable. A removed task keeps its Passed / Failed result too.

Tips

• Start with By objective for the synthesis story; switch to By question when you want to dig into a specific moment.
• Compare the groups you care about. Putting "people who said 'yes' vs 'no'" side by side with Compare often reveals more than the overall analysis does.
• If a theme looks wrong, check the quotes: sometimes the AI groups two distinct things under one label. Edit your objectives to be sharper and refresh.

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