Gorp
Interview research
Five interviews with quotes you may want to use. Keep the sessions apart, replay a quote before you use it, and count interviews rather than passages.
Start with one interview and one or two research questions.
What you end up with
A reviewed interview note with replayable evidence and clear boundaries around what it supports.
Before you start
- Choose a neutral participant label and a consistent naming convention.
- Write the research questions and discussion topics in My notes.
- Agree how recording, retention, and sharing will work before the interview.
Keep sessions distinct
Use one note per interview and file related interviews together. Give each a title such as Onboarding research — P03 — 2026-10-04. Use the interview-research template, and record who was actually present.
Ask for an example, not agreement
Ask participants to describe a recent experience. Note topics you did not reach and moments you want to replay. Leave time for unexpected problems that do not fit your initial hypothesis.
Review the evidence before using a quote
Transcribe and generate a draft. Check speaker labels, important details, and proposed quotes against audio. Do not assume that several uncertain passages represent several speakers. Correct attribution before drawing conclusions.
Synthesize with a visible session list
Use library search or Ask to explore related interviews, then open the cited source notes and passages. Keep a manual list of distinct sessions and reviewed participants supporting each theme. A generated cross-note answer is a starting point to inspect, not a verified finding.
Gorp does not yet provide a dedicated research matrix that deduplicates participants and verifies prevalence counts. Count interviews or people deliberately, not passages.
Share the minimum useful evidence
Export reviewed findings and approved excerpts, keeping participant labels and sharing constraints intact. Check that chosen materials and audio do not expose information you intended to withhold. Preserve contradictory examples alongside the theme.
Questions to try
Use these as prompts, then follow the conversation.
- Tell me about the last time you did this.
- What happened immediately before that?
- What did you try next?
- Can you show a specific example?
- Was there a time this worked differently?
Count sessions, not snippets
What you put in My notes
Theme to investigate: finding the first saved note. P03 — one interview — described two confusing steps. P05 — one interview — found the note without help. Three passages are relevant, but only two interviews are represented. Need to check both source recordings before writing a finding.
What you are aiming for
A traceable theme with a counterexample and a correct distinction between passages and interviews.
Your starter template
In Settings → Templates → Browse starter templates…, add an editable copy of this template and save settings. Or create a Blank template. Name it “Interview research”, paste the outline and guidance below into their matching fields, and save settings. Choose the template in your note; use Insert outline if My notes is empty. The download is a text worksheet you can keep, not a one-click import file.
Download the starter worksheet ↓Outline
## Session and participant label ## Research questions ## Observed experiences ## Exact language to review ## Interpretations and competing explanations ## Questions we did not cover ## Follow-up and sharing constraints
Note-writing guidance
Keep observations and participant statements separate from researcher interpretations. Organize around the supplied research questions, and identify unanswered questions rather than filling gaps. Attribute statements only to reviewed participant labels; never treat multiple transcript passages as multiple people or interviews. Keep counterexamples, disagreement, and uncertainty visible. Mark quotations unverified until checked against audio. Do not infer prevalence, percentages, or population findings from a single interview or incomplete sample. Record sharing constraints only when supplied.
Newer tools worth trying
These are in the current Mac preview. Nothing is shared or added to Reminders until you review it and say so.
Add → Story chapters… can collect selected passages and approved photos into a reviewed sharing folder. Review participant labels and the complete text, audio and photo preview before saving it as reviewed.
This is a selected evidence package, not a research prevalence report. Participant deduplication and reviewed theme matrices remain roadmap work; count distinct sessions and people deliberately.
Project history… in the library sidebar or Edit menu shows confirmed decisions, actions and noted questions in a folder or tag you choose. Open or listen to the source, search planning details, and copy the shown history. Repeated statements keep their dates and source notes; discussion does not automatically complete actions or replace earlier decisions.
What still needs your judgment
- Speaker suggestions and model citations need review; they are not verified attribution.
- Gorp does not automatically verify participant counts or make a population-level research claim.
For processing choices and data flow, see the privacy setup guide.