Affinity Diagramming

The visible clustering of observations and insights into meaningful categories and relationships

• Designers capture research insights, observations, concerns, or requirements on individual sticky notes.

• Rather than grouping notes into predefined categories, specific details are clustered, which then give rise to named category themes based on the shared affinity of similar intent, issues, or problems.

• Making tacit knowledge or information buried in transcripts visible facilitates research synthesis.

• Affinity diagramming from the contextual inquiry is based on interviews and observations of users in the field, synthesizing human stories.

• Affinity diagramming from usability testing documents observations and quotes of participant task performance to determine priority issues to be fixed.

• Color-coded sticky notes can help to efficiently parse information by user, task, or issue.