Turn a saved user interview into a transcript you can inspect

1. Authority

Check the participant agreement, permitted purpose, audience and retention rule before sending a recording to an external provider. If permission is unclear, resolve it before uploading.

2. Source

Keep the original recording available to its authorized reviewer. Use the transcript to locate a passage; listen to the surrounding question and answer before deciding what the phrase means.

3. Attribution

Check who actually spoke, especially at interruptions and overlapping turns. Use a participant code where appropriate. A correct sentence under the wrong speaker can reverse the evidence.

4. Wording

Replay consequential words, names, numbers and negations. Correct only what the recording supports, keep the timestamp, and leave an unclear passage marked unresolved instead of guessing.

5. Handoff

Choose what the next reviewer may receive. Minimize identifiers, preserve context and review state, and record the deletion date and responsible person in your project system. Revoke a share link when its purpose ends.

Synthetic example: two independent mistakes

A draft at 12:43 labels a line as the researcher and says “I could tell it saved.” In this invented example, audio review identifies the participant and the words “I could not tell whether anything had been saved.” Check speaker and wording separately; fluent text does not establish either.

The example teaches the review process. It is not an actual recording, customer quote or accuracy benchmark.

Keep review separate from interpretation

For each quote, record participant code, timestamp, draft wording, speaker check, audio check, context, review state and sharing decision. Leave the checks blank until you perform them. A verified quote still does not establish a theme or a representative finding.

Download blank quote worksheet (CSV)

No account is needed. Fill it in locally using your own permitted material. Transcripts does not receive the completed worksheet.

For freelance product managers

A searchable transcript reduces the time spent scrubbing through audio when you need to recover a customer phrase, confirm an objection or prepare evidence for a client readout. A revocable share link can give a client access without sending the recording around.

For UX researchers

Keep the participant's words available while you tag observations, compare sessions and develop themes elsewhere. Review sensitive passages before sharing, and use participant codes rather than names when your research plan calls for pseudonymisation.

For students with interview coursework

If your dissertation or seminar paper requires interviews you conducted yourself, the hard part starts after the last one: qualitative methods literature estimates three to ten hours of manual transcription per hour of recording, and the same literature tells you to check every transcript against the audio before you rely on it. Timestamped turns are what make that check a jump rather than a re-listen. With an academic email address, the first six billed months cost half the full price, applied at checkout with no coupon code.

For multilingual interviews

This saved-recording workflow transcribes the language that was spoken. Keep that source-language record and make translation decisions separately. For supported live Hebrew-English conversations, the separate Windows live-caption pilot has its own scope and limitations.