Step-by-Step Tutorial
How to Use Qualitati
Welcome to Qualitati
The All-in-One Qualitative Research Platform
Qualitati brings together specialized tools for qualitative research: AI Interviewer, ThemeLens, QDA Workspace, AI Surveys, Mimi, Active Listening Assistant, and Manuscript Proofreader. Whether you're conducting autonomous interviews, coding data rigorously, or running live sessions, Qualitati makes the process faster, smarter, and more insightful.
Video tutorials
Short narrated walkthroughs of the platform and of each tool · Narrated in English
Our Research Tools
Eleven Specialized Tools for Every Stage of Qualitative Research
01
AI Interviewer
Our autonomous AI agent conducts interviews on your behalf — text or voice — following your custom research protocol. Supports structured and semi-structured formats.
02
ThemeLens
Upload transcripts or import from projects. AI identifies themes, patterns, and insights across up to 100 interviews at once with inductive coding.
03
AI Surveys
Create and distribute qualitative surveys with AI-powered adaptive follow-up questions based on participant responses.
04
Mimi
Your AI research assistant — ask questions about qualitative methods, get coding suggestions, and brainstorm research designs.
05
Active Listening Assistant
Real-time transcription with speaker detection and AI-generated follow-up suggestions for live interviews and focus groups.
06
Synthetic Focus Group
Simulate multi-agent AI discussions on your research topic before fieldwork. Different AI models debate as diverse demographics, producing a Social Context Report with themes, tensions, and opinion clusters.
07
Digital Twin Panel
Extract AI personas from completed interviews (with consent) to create reusable digital twins. Deploy them for future studies, pilot testing, or data augmentation.
08
Voice Analytics
Extract acoustic features and detect emotions from interview audio recordings for deeper insights beyond the text.
09
QDA Workspace
A rigorous qualitative data analysis workspace supporting both manual and AI-assisted coding, codebook generation, and structured reports.
10
Manuscript Proofreader
AI proofreading for academic papers. Returns Word documents with Track Changes, comments, and quality scores for writing, journal fit, and scientific soundness.
11
Annotator
Batch deductive coding with multiple LLMs in parallel. Upload a spreadsheet, define codes, and get automatic inter-coder reliability (Krippendorff α, Fleiss κ, Cohen κ).
How to Use Each Tool
Step-by-step guides for every feature
AI Interviewer
Set up fully automated AI interviews — text or voice — and let the AI conduct your research interviews on your behalf.
From your dashboard, click New Project to create a new interview study
Name your project, describe your research goal, and select the interview language (English, Chinese, French, Norwegian, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese or Arabic)
Choose interview mode: Structured (AI follows your script strictly) or Semi-Structured (AI probes adaptively based on participant answers)
Write or paste your interview protocol — or leave it open and let the AI generate smart follow-up questions automatically
Configure settings: set a time limit, enable audio recording (participants are always asked for consent), and choose text-only or voice mode
Optionally customize the pre-interview form with your own instructions, stimuli, or screening questions
Copy the participant link and share it via email, Prolific, MTurk, or social media — no participant registration required, works on desktop and mobile
Monitor interviews in real-time from your dashboard, then download transcripts, audio files, and summaries when complete
Tutorial Steps
Follow These Steps to Get Started
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Head to Qualitati.com. Register with your email and set your password. You'll immediately receive 30 free credits to explore the core features.
- Once logged in, click "New Project."
- Project Details: Name your project, describe your research goal, and select your preferred interview language(s).
- Choose Interview Mode: Select either "Structured" (AI follows your outline strictly) or "Semi-Structured" (AI probes adaptively based on answers).
- Upload/Write Protocol: Paste your interview guide. Don't worry—Qualitati can generate smart follow-up questions if you leave this open-ended.
- Time Limits: Set a max interview duration if needed.
- Audio Recording: Enable or disable voice recording. (Qualitati always asks for participant consent before recording.)
- Voice Settings: Choose whether you want participants to hear the interviewer's voice or just see the text responses.
- Customize Interview Form: You can either leave the interview form blank to use the standard participant information form, or customize it with your own stimuli, instruction text, or additional questions that participants should answer before starting the interview.
- After saving your project, copy the unique interview link. You may choose to share either the standard turn-taking interview link or the real-time mode link, depending on your research needs. We generally recommend starting with the standard turn-taking interview, as it offers a good balance of structure and flexibility for most studies.
- Share it directly with your sample via email, social media, Prolific, or MTurk.
- No registration is required for participants—they can join from desktop or mobile, pick their language, and start anytime.
- Track interviews in real time from your dashboard.
- You can see conversation logs in real time through the data exploration page to monitor interview progress and quality.
- Automated prompts help maintain interview flow and data quality.
- Download your results as a zip file. You'll get:
- • Audio files (if recorded)
- • Full transcripts
- • Interview summaries (including time stamps and participant info)
- • Project metadata
- Text Analytics: Import your transcripts directly into the analysis module. Run clustering, sentiment detection, and check for data saturation—all in one place.
- Export ready-to-use files for MAXQDA, NVivo, or Excel.
- Observe data saturation: If new interviews aren't yielding new insights, you can confidently stop data collection.
- Share results with your team or supervisor. Use Qualitati's reporting tools to visualize findings and accelerate your write-up.
Frequently Asked Questions (Q&A)
Get Answers to Common Questions
Yes. All data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Qualitati stores information securely on DigitalOcean servers in Amsterdam. Personal data is never used for AI training or secondary purposes.
No. Only the researcher needs an account. Participants join via a link and provide consent directly on the interview page.
Qualitati is built for scale. You can conduct multiple interviews simultaneously—great for projects with large samples.
10 languages are fully supported: English, Chinese, French, Norwegian, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Arabic. Participants select their preferred language before starting.
Yes. Qualitati supports integration for participant recruitment and provides features to link interview data with MTurk/Prolific IDs for compensation.
New users get 30 free credits. After that, it's pay-as-you-go at $1 for 30 credits—just enough to cover hosting and maintenance.
For now, yes! All text analytics features are free for every user.
The analysis dashboard lets you see if new interviews are changing your themes or findings. When the system detects little to no change, it suggests your data may be saturated.
Check out the full documentation and research updates at https://qualitati.com/research or email the team anytime.
Qualitati's AI interview system has been benchmarked against traditional, human-led interviews and has demonstrated performance on par with experienced interviewers in terms of question quality, depth of probing, and the richness of data collected. Internal studies and user feedback consistently show that both the breadth and depth of themes uncovered match or exceed standard approaches. If you're interested in the empirical details, visit the research section, where you'll find published comparisons, user studies, and detailed evaluations of data quality. The platform continues to evolve based on ongoing research and user input.
Ready to Get Started?
Join thousands of researchers who trust Qualitati for AI interviews, thematic analysis, surveys, and more.