When to use it
At three moments in the same study. When you build the script, to check that your questions cover the six minds: vision, wayfinding, memory, language, emotion and decision. When you analyze, to use the six minds as coding categories. And when you present, to group findings by the cognitive process that failed instead of handing them over as a long list of problems.
It is most useful when the problem you are researching is about conversion or abandonment: the moment someone did not do what the design expected, and you need to find where it broke.
Before you use it
It does not replace the interview guide. This template does not include the session structure, the timings or the opening script: those are in the interview guide, and written authorization is in the informed consent template. What it adds is a layer to check that the questions in your guide look at all six minds.
The six minds are not the order of the script. You do not need one block per mind, or to name them in the session. The point is that none goes unasked. A good open question often touches two or three at once.
Coding with categories you bring in has a cost. The six minds are a prior framework: whatever fits none of them tends to disappear from the analysis. That is why the coding table has an "outside the framework" option. If it fills up, that is not a coding error, it is a finding. If you have never coded interviews, the thematic analysis guide walks through the whole process.
The document
Study: [study name] Lead: [person or team] Research question: [what you need to find out, in one sentence] Date: [date]
Part 1. Questions by mind
Before fieldwork. Write at least one question of your own for each mind and note which block of your interview guide it goes in. The example questions are a starting point: swap the screen, product or moment for the ones in your study.
| Mind | What you are looking for | Example question | Your question and guide block |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vision and attention | What the person sees, what they expect to see and what they are missing | Tell me what was the first thing you saw when you entered the site. | [ ] |
| Wayfinding | Whether they know where they are, how they navigate and whether they can go back | How did you know where to click? Did you feel lost at any moment? | [ ] |
| Memory | Which patterns the interface triggers, and what they expect to happen based on what they already know | Does this remind you of any other site or app you've used? | [ ] |
| Language | Which words the person uses, and whether they understand the product's | Was there any word or term you didn't understand? | [ ] |
| Emotion | What worries them, what motivates them and what fears come up | How did you feel when you saw the price, the form or the error message? | [ ] |
| Decision | What they need in order to decide, and what information is missing | What information did you need to decide? What was missing? | [ ] |
Part 2. How to collect and analyze each mind
For reference. Not every mind is well captured by conversation alone: some need you to watch the task, or to ask again after the interaction. Mark the ones you will use in this study.
| Mind | Collection | Systematization | Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vision and attention | Observe what they look at; eye tracking or heat maps | Map of areas that get attention versus areas that are ignored | Are the points of attention the ones the design intended? |
| Wayfinding | Ask them to navigate and observe whether they get lost | User flows or journey maps | Does the structure match what the person expected? |
| Memory | Recall questions after the interaction | Sort by ease of recall | What is remembered and what is forgotten? |
| Language | Pay attention to the vocabulary the person uses | Glossary built from users' own words | Which words do they use often, and which do they not recognize? |
| Emotion | Ask how they feel at each point | Emotional journey map | At which moments do frustration or joy show up? |
| Decision | Explore how they make the decision | Profiles by way of deciding | Which factors weigh in? Do experienced and new users decide differently? |
Minds you will capture by observing, not only by asking: [ ]
Part 3. Coding
During analysis. One row per excerpt from the transcripts or notes, and one mind per excerpt. If it touches several, which is to be expected, choose the one that matters most for what you are going to design: is the problem what they see, how they move around, what they expect, the words, how they decide, or what they feel? If it fits none, mark it "outside the framework" and note what it is.
| Session | Excerpt or quote | Moment or screen | Mind | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Values for the Mind column: vision and attention · wayfinding · memory · language · emotion · decision · outside the framework.
Part 4. Synthesis by mind
To communicate. Group what you coded by mind and write one finding per row. Leave empty the minds where you found nothing: that is information too.
| Mind | Finding | Evidence (quote and session) | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vision and attention | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Wayfinding | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Memory | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Language | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Emotion | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Decision | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Outside the framework | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
Summary for the team: Problems concentrate in the [mind] mind ([what happens to the person]) and the [mind] mind ([what happens to the person]).
Review before closing
- Does each mind have at least one question of your own, not just the example?
- Are your questions still open after you adapted them?
- Does each excerpt have a single mind, the one that matters most?
- Did you review what ended up "outside the framework" before writing the synthesis?
- Does each finding in the synthesis have a quote that supports it?
Basis
- Whalen, J. (2019). Design for How People Think: Using Brain Science to Build Better Products. O'Reilly Media. The six minds correspond to chapters 2 to 7 of the book: vision, attention, and automaticity; wayfinding; memory/semantics; language; decision making and problem solving; and emotion.
- The example questions in part 1 are adapted from the activity in chapter 1 (pp. 7–8), where Whalen proposes questions for each mind to observe your own experience when shopping on a website. Here they are rewritten as interview questions. The "What you are looking for" column is based on what he proposes to look for in each mind when reviewing field notes (pp. 75–76), with two additions from the review: whether the person can go back, and what information they are missing to decide.
- The coding in part 3 follows his method in chapter 8 (pp. 75–77): write down each participant's observations, sort them into one column per mind and, when an observation touches several, file it once under the one that matters most. Whalen also writes down important social interactions separately; the "outside the framework" option extends that idea.
- The synthesis in part 4 follows the last step of the same method (p. 77): look for trends across participants and take each mind's findings to the right person on the team.
- The table in part 2 comes from the review of Design for How People Think on this site. It combines resources the book proposes for some minds, such as eye tracking and heat maps (ch. 9) or the decision-making journey map (ch. 13), with others that are not in the book, such as recall tests, the glossary and the emotional journey map.