Over the past year, we've been busy getting ready to bring Reframer v2 out of beta. After implementing a ton of feedback from our superb beta users and plenty of usability testing, the day has finally arrived. It's time to say bye-bye beta!

What is Reframer v2 beta?

Reframer v2 is a connected, collaborative and flexible workflow for your qualitative research and analysis. It allows you to capture, code, group, visualize and analyze your data within one single tool. And it's now available to all Optimal Workshop customers on a paid plan!

Conducting user interviews or usability tests? Reframer v2 is your new best friend.

To all the Reframer users out there, you'll be chuffed to know that we've taken the best bits of the original tool and added better analysis and collaboration (among other things). We think you'll really enjoy using Reframer v2 (and there's plenty of help to get you up and running in no time).

Why should I use Reframer v2?

We made it our mission to alleviate those pesky pain points that so many researchers have when conducting qualitative analysis.

No more context switching

Observations, notes and metadata spread across different tools? No thanks. There's no need for multiple platforms anymore.

Reframer v2 offers an intuitive end-to-end qualitative research workflow within one tool. Create and conduct interview sessions, capture notes, tag, group, theme, analyze, and collaborate without having to leave the app.

Detailed insights at your fingertips

With all your juicy data living in different tools, it can be pretty tricky to filter and gain in-depth insight.

Reframer v2 doesn't take a "one size fits all" approach. It's specifically built for qualitative research, with all your metadata and context in one place, all easily searchable with powerful filters.

Analyze your data your way

When you're ready for analysis, you don't want to be stuck doing it one way or the other.

We've added two different analysis methods to Reframer v2. Affinity mapping helps you with observation-based analysis, which is flexible, visual and collaborative. While the Themes tab offers tag-based analysis with powerful filters, giving you more quantifiable results.

Collaborate in real-time

Collaboration is key during qualitative research and analysis.

You can work together with your team members in Reframer v2. Simply invite them to your study and any edits or notes they make will show on the affinity map in real-time. You can also see their activity in the Study Members tab.

What will happen to the original Reframer?

Reframer v1 will be turned off eventually, and Reframer v2 will simply become Reframer. But we want to make sure that v2 is up to scratch, your data is safe and sound, and you're confident in using v2 before that happens.

Take a look at the next steps of the Reframer v2 release:

June 2022

Reframer v2 is rolled out to all paid customers. Based on feedback, we'll continue to build in and iterate on the most requested features. Reframer v2 will be the default for all new paid users, but current users can continue to toggle between v1 and v2.

Oct 2022

Reframer v2 is rolled out to all customers and is the default for all users. All studies in legacy Reframer will be moved into v2. Paid customers will have access to the full feature set, free users will have access to a limited version of the tool.

Early 2023 (date TBC)

Legacy Reframer is turned off and v2 becomes the new (and only) Reframer.

So there you have it! We're really excited to have Reframer v2 in front of all our paid customers, and we can't wait to hear what you think of it. If you've got suggestions or thoughts (good, bad or ugly), we want to know! Simply click the Feedback icon in the header and voila!

Reframer is a qualitative research tool that was built to help teams capture and make sense of their research findings quickly and easily. For those of you who have been a long-standing Optimal Workshop customer, you may know that Reframer has been in beta for some time. In fact, it has been in beta for 2 whole years. Truth was that, while we’ve cheerfully responded to your feedback with a number of cool features and improvements, we had some grand plans up our sleeve. So, we took everything we learned and went back to drawing board with the goal to provide the best dang experience we can.We’ll soon be ready to launch Reframer out of beta and let it take its place proudly as a full time member of our suite of user research tools. However, in the spirit of continuous improvement, we want to give you all a chance to use it and give us feedback on the new experience so far.

First-time Reframer user?

Awesome! You’ll get to experience the newer version of Reframer with a fresh set of eyes. To enable Reframer, log in to your Optimal Workshop account. On your dashboard you’ll see a button to join the Reframer beta on your screen at right.

Used Reframer before?

Any new studies you create will automatically use the slick new version. Not quite ready to learn the new awesome? No worries you can toggle back and forth between the old version and the new in the top right corner of your screen.To learn about Reframer’s new look and features, watch the video or read the transcript below to hear more about these changes and why we made them.

When is Reframer actually coming out of beta?

This year. Stay tuned.

Video transcript:

We’re this close to having our qualitative research tool, Reframer, all set to release from beta.But we just couldn’t wait to share some of the changes we’ve got lined up. So, we’ve gone ahead and launched a fresh version of Reframer to give you a taste of what’s to come.These latest updates include a more streamlined workflow and a cleaner user interface, as well as laying the foundations for some exciting features in the coming months.So let’s take a look at the revamped Reframer.We’ve updated the study screen to help you get started and keep track of where your research is at.

• You now have an area for study objectives to keep your team on the same page

• And an area for reference links, to give you quick access to prototypes and other relevant documents

• Session information is now shown here too, so you can get an overview of all your participants at a glance

• And we’ve created a home for your tags with more guidance around how to use them, like example tags and groups to help you get started.

What’s the most important thing when observing a research session? Collecting insights of course! So we’ve simplified the capture experience to let you focus on taking great notes.

• You can choose to reveal your tags, so they’re at the ready, or hide them so you can save your tagging till later

• We’ve created a whole range of keyboard shortcuts to speed up adding and formatting observations

• The import experience is now more streamlined, so it’s easier to bring observations from other sources into Reframer

• And, with some huge improvements behind the scenes, Reframer is even faster, giving you a more seamless note taking experience.

Now for something totally new — introducing review mode. Here you can see your own observations, as well as those made by anyone else in your team. This makes it easy to tidy up and edit your data after your session is complete. You can filter, search and tag observations, so you’ll be ready to make sense of everything when you move to analysis.We’ve added more guidance throughout Reframer, so you’ll have the confidence you’re on the right track. New users will be up and running in no time with improved help and easy access to resources.You might notice a few changes to our UI as well, but it’s not just about looks.

• We’ve changed the font to make it easier to read on any screen size

• Our updated button colours to provide better contrast and hierarchy

• And we’ve switched our icons from fonts to images to make them more accessible to more users.

And that’s where we’re at.We've got a lot more exciting features to come, so why not jump in, give the new Reframer a try and tell us what you think!Send us your feedback and ideas at research@optimalworkshop.com and keep an eye out for more changes coming soon. Catch you later!

We’ve been working hard over the last few weeks on some nifty little changes to the way you can use, create and manage tags in Reframer. Today, we’re happy to announce that all these changes are now live. Yay!Now, you can group your tags and add custom colors. Learn a little bit about how these new features work and how you can use them below.

More flexibility with your tags

We made these changes so that the notetaking and analysis stages of your research projects are simpler. Previously, Reframer tags would all be the same shade of blue and organized alphabetically — not always the easiest way to find the tags you’re looking for. Now you can add as many tag groups as you like to your Reframer sessions to make managing and finding your tags much quicker and more effortless. Even better, you can also apply colors to these groups. Pick from our selected palette of colors, or choose a custom one through the hex color code chart. Grouping your tags gives you the freedom to organize your research observations in the way that makes sense to your project. Here are some of the many ways you can group and color your research observations.

• Based on sentiment (happy, sad, angry, confused etc.)
• Based on products
• Based on tasks — for example, testing a certain section or feature of a website
• Based on devices used
• Based on defining personas
• Based on period of time/time of day

These new tag features give you a lot of flexibility — each group doesn’t have to contain only one color. You can add multiple colors within one group (for example, within a ‘sentiment’ group you could select red for ‘angry’, green for ‘happy’ etc).For a bit more guidance on how to write effective research observations in Reframer, check out this article we wrote for UX Mastery.We hope you like these new tag features for Reframer. As always, if you have any feedback please let us know on support@optimalworkshop.comAlternatively, comment below with some of the ways you’ve used these new features in your research.

The accuracy of your data collection is crucial in qualitative research. It is vital that nothing is lost in translation or simply missed from the point of collection to analysis, and our latest release makes this even easier to achieve. You can now directly import interview transcripts into Reframer, allowing you and your team to capture and tag observations effortlessly while maintaining the integrity of the information. Get ready to experience a new level of efficiency in your qualitative research!

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The importance of transcription ✍🏽

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Whether you are conducting interviews alone or with the support of your team, it’s important to prioritize building connections with participants rather than struggling to take notes and ask the right questions. Transcripts ensure you avoid losing crucial insights and context as you move from data collection to analysis and reduce the likelihood of human errors and missed observations that sometimes occur during live note-taking sessions. 

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It also enables smooth collaboration among team members by allowing them to review interviews and contribute to the analysis, even if they weren't present.

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How to import a transcript to Reframer

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Watch the video 📽️ 👀

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You can add a transcript to a new or existing study in Reframer with just a few clicks. After recording an interview or user testing session, open your Reframer study and click ‘Sessions’ then ‘+ Transcript.’

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Add a session title, any session information or a link to the video for future reference in the session information box. If you have created segments, choose which ones apply to this participant; you can update these later at any time. Then click ‘import transcript.’

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Click ‘Select transcript’ and ensure you made any edits before importing it. This feature supports .vtt, .srt, or .txt files. Now, click Capture observations’ to complete the import and create and tag your observations.

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You will see your transcript displayed. If you use a .vtt or .srt file, you will see the speaker names have been identified. You can update the speaker names by clicking on configure speakers.

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How to create observations

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To create observations from your transcript, simply highlight text, enter a new tag or select an existing one, then click create an observation.

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There is no limit to how many transcripts you can import. This means you can import all your past and future interviews, ensuring all your research data is in one place for easy access and analysis.

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Take the Reframer Academy Course 📚

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Reframer supports your entire qualitative research workflow, from conducting interviews and capturing observations to tagging and visualizing your data.   It keeps all your valuable user interviews and usability testing metadata in one place.

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To learn more about how to get the most out of Reframer, take the Reframer course at the Optimal Academy. In this short course, you'll learn how to set yourself and your team up to capture, tag, and group your observations to get to the insights faster.