How to analyze interview transcripts with ATLAS.ti

Who this article is for

This article is for researchers, students, instructors, evaluators, and qualitative research teams working with interview data in ATLAS.ti.

What is interview analysis?

Interview analysis is the process of examining interview data to identify:

• themes
• patterns
• meanings
• experiences
• perspectives
• relationships
• contradictions

Researchers often work with:

• interview transcripts
• notes
• audio recordings
• video interviews

ATLAS.ti helps organize and analyze this data while keeping connections between quotations, codes, memos, and interpretations visible throughout the project.

What you can do with interview transcripts in ATLAS.ti

You can use ATLAS.ti to:

• organize interview transcripts
• code important passages
• compare responses across participants
• identify recurring themes
• write analytical memos
• search for concepts and keywords
• visualize relationships between themes
• generate reports for writing and presentations

Step 1: Create a project

• In ATLAS.ti Windows and Mac

1. Open ATLAS.ti.
2. Select New Project.
3. Name your project.

• In ATLAS.ti Web

1. Log in to ATLAS.ti Web.
2. Click Add project > Create Project.
3. Name the project.

Step 2: Add interview transcripts

• You can import:
  • PDF transcripts
  • Word documents
  • text files
  • interview notes
  • multimedia files (Windows and Mac only)

• In ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Add Document > Add File(s).
• In ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Documents > Add Documents.
• In ATLAS.ti Web: Open the Document manager and select Add Documents.

Step 3: Organize interviews

Before coding, organize your interview transcripts clearly.

You can also use document groups to organize interviews by:

• participant type
• location
• age group
• department
• interview round
• demographic category

Step 4: Read and code interview transcripts

Coding is the process of labeling meaningful segments of text.

Create quotations and apply codes

1. Open a transcript.
2. Highlight a relevant passage.
3. Create a quotation.
4. Apply one or more codes.

You can:

• create new codes while coding
• apply multiple codes to the same quotation
• rename or merge codes later

Step 5: Use AI-supported tools

ATLAS.ti includes AI-supported tools that can help explore interview data.

• Suggested Codes

Suggested Codes recommends codes for selected text segments. This tool supports manual coding workflows while keeping the researcher in control of the analysis.

• In ATLAS.ti Windows and Mac
  • Right click on the quotation
  • Select "Apply codes"
  • Click Suggested

• In ATLAS.ti Web
  • Right click on the quotation
  • Select "Suggested Codes"

• AI Coding with Intentions

AI Coding with Intentions analyzes documents based on a specific analytical goal. ATLAS.ti generates guiding questions and analyzes the transcripts paragraph by paragraph.

You can:

• edit generated questions
• add your own questions
• remove irrelevant questions
• In ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Search and Code tab > Intentional AI Coding
• In ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Analysis > Intentional AI Coding
• In ATLAS.ti Web: Open the Document manager and select Document(s) > Tools > AI Coding + Intention.

• Conversational AI

Conversational AI allows you to ask questions about your interview transcripts in natural language.

Examples:

What are the main themes in these interviews?

You can review linked quotations directly from the AI responses.

• In ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Search and Code tab > Conversational AI
• In ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Analysis > Intentional AI Coding
• In ATLAS.ti Web:
  • Open the Document manager and select Document(s) > Tools > Conversational AI, or
  • Click " Conversational AI" menu on the left side of the page

• AI Summaries (Windows and Mac only)

AI Summaries generates short summaries of selected interview transcripts.

• In ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Search & Code > AI Summaries.
• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Analysis > AI Summaries.

Generated summaries are saved as memos.

However you can also use "Conversational AI" in ATLAS.ti Web to generates short summaries of selected interview transcripts.

Step 6: Write memos during analysis

Memos help capture analytical thinking throughout the research process.

Use memos to record:

• reflections
• interpretations
• methodological notes
• emerging themes
• participant comparisons
• theoretical ideas

Create a memo

• In ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Memo > Memos > New Memo.
• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Memo > New Memo.
• ATLAS.ti Web: Go to Memo menu on the left side of the page

In ATLAS.ti desktop, you can also link memos to:

• quotations
• codes
• documents
• networks

Step 7: Compare interview responses

ATLAS.ti includes several tools for comparing interview data across participants.

• Code-document analysis

Code-document analysis helps compare which themes appear across interviews or participant groups.

Examples:

• Which themes appear most frequently?
• Which participants mention similar experiences?
• Which topics differ between groups?
  • In ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Analyze > Code Document Analysis.
  • ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Analysis > Code Document Analysis.

In this example, we compare recommendations made by experts and laypeople about sustainable living. The researcher selected codes related to practical recommendations, such as:

• Conserving energy and water
• Managing waste
• Sustainable transport options
• Choosing food
• Buying other things
• Change factors

Then they compared these codes across two document groups:

• Interviews: Experts
• Interviews: Laypeople

In this example, the Code-Document Analysis showed that both experts and laypeople frequently discussed financial costs and rewards as important factors in sustainable living.

However, the comparison also showed differences between the groups:

• Experts mentioned recycling and public transportation more often.
• Laypeople focused more on information, awareness, and public infrastructure.

This suggests that both groups agree that cost matters, but they emphasize different types of practical support. Experts focus more on specific sustainable behaviors, while laypeople emphasize the conditions that make sustainable behavior easier.

This kind of comparison can help researchers move from coded survey responses to meaningful findings. For example, the results may suggest that policy makers should not only promote recycling or public transportation, but also improve public awareness and infrastructure so people can act on those recommendations.

• In ATLAS.ti Web
  • Go to the View section by clicking the bar chart icon on the left side of the page.
  • Click New View and select Code-Document Table.
  • Then, choose the desired Code/Code Group and Document/Document Group.
  • You can change the display of the results between Table view and Sankey view.

• Code co-occurrence analysis

Code co-occurrence analysis helps identify where concepts overlap within the interviews.

• In ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to the Analyze tab.
• In ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to the Analysis menu.

As an example:

• Select the codes “Barriers” and “Facilitators” in the top-left window.
• Select the all the category codes related to behaviors (blue) and values (pink) in the bottom-left window
• The table shows how many times each each behavior and value was perceived as a facilitator or barrier to living sustainably. On Mac, Click on the “compress” button to remove any empty rows/columns or click "Remove empty" on Windows version.

It seems that all of the behaviors tend to be primarily perceived as facilitators to living sustainably, while it’s also clear that participants mentioned some barriers related to each of these behaviors. This suggests that the behaviors relevant suggestions, but potential barriers to each one should also be considered.

• In ATLAS.ti Web: The Code Co-occurrence Table is available in the View section. Click the View icon on the left-hand side, then select New View > Code Co-occurrence Table.

• Concepts tool

In a first step, the significant noun phrases are detected in order to identify the most frequently occurring concepts in the data. In the second step, the concepts and their frequencies are collected across all files in the set being processed.

• In ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Search and Code tab > Concepts
• In ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Analysis > Concepts
• In ATLAS.ti Web: Go to View > Concepts

Example of the concept cloud generated from code "Sustainable lifestyle"

This concept cloud helps us see what concepts emerged from participants’ own words. This can help us understand the essence of how participants define a sustainable lifestyle. In other words, the concept cloud shows us all concepts that appeared and the frequency of each concept, and this gives us a fuller picture of everything that was mentioned when defining sustainability. 

• Word Frequencies

Word Frequencies currently only available in desktop version ( Windows and Mac).

• In ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Search and Code tab > Word Frequencies
• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Analysis > Word Frequencies

Example of the word cloud generated from all interview transcripts

We can see that participants talked a lot about sustainability and the three sites of practice (home, work, vacation). Other words that might stand out to us are “energy”, “practice”, “encourage”, “change”, and “future”, which seem to refer to specific behaviours and how people can make changes. These words are very relevant for our research question, so we might want to see what participants say about these topics. We also might want to see what practices participants talk about in relation to the different sites of practice, because it’s also interesting that participants talk a lot about “government”, “community”, and “work”. 

Step 8: Visualize themes with networks ( desktop version only)

Networks help visualize relationships between:

• codes
• quotations
• memos
• themes
• participant experiences

Create a network

1. Go to Network > New Network.
2. Add codes, quotations, memos, or documents.
3. Draw relationships between concepts.
4. Name relationships where useful.

Networks can help build conceptual frameworks and prepare findings for reports or presentations.

Step 9: Export reports and findings

ATLAS.ti allows you to export coded data and analytical outputs.

You can export analysis results and reports from ATLAS.ti for use in writing, presentations, or further analysis.

• In ATLAS.ti Web, results can be exported in Excel format.
• In ATLAS.ti Windows and Mac, results can be exported in multiple formats, including Excel, Word, PDF, and image files.

Common issues and mistakes

• Creating too many overlapping codes
  • Use short, meaningful code names and merge similar codes where appropriate.
• Coding without reviewing context
  • Always review quotations within the full interview context before interpreting them.
• Forgetting to write memos
  • Memos help connect coding to interpretation and theory development.
• Treating AI coding as final analysis
  • AI tools can assist analysis, but researchers should still refine and interpret the results manually.
• Not organizing transcripts before coding
  • Clear document names and document groups make analysis much easier later.
• Focusing only on frequency
  • Frequently mentioned themes are not always the most important findings. Pay attention to nuance, contradictions, and less common but meaningful experiences.

When to contact support

Contact ATLAS.ti Support if:

• transcripts cannot be imported
• audio or video files fail to load
• AI tools are unavailable or not working correctly
• reports or exports fail
• projects cannot be transferred between platforms
• visualizations or networks do not display correctly

Include:

• your platform (Windows, Mac, or Web)
• your ATLAS.ti version if using Desktop
• screenshots or error messages
• the file type you are importing
• a short description of your workflow