What do you like best about the product?

It was the first SaaS tool I've ever used to bring qualitative insights together. It was helpful to tag exactly where in a transcription or video an interviewee said something and to tie the comments together with tags

What do you dislike about the product?

Strong learning curve. It took a while to learn all the features and functionalities, and even after that it felt like there must be more efficient ways to do things (though I never found them). It's also very time consuming

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Analyzing qualitative data in a system rather than miscellaneous documents

What do you like best about the product?

Dovetail is a fantastic tool for conducting and managing qualitative research. It helps bring all your research planning, source data, analysis and reporting together, so you can not only share the final results but all the supporting work that helped you get there.

It's also really helpful in making research easier to conduct - you can create templates for different project types, track all your participants individually, or use the same tag set across as many projects as you want. That and the transcript feature have really sped up our research processes.

It's free for members of your company to have viewer accounts (which can view and comment) which makes it a great place to store and share research work. Accounts are super quick to set up – about 80% of our company has an account, and everyone from devs to support actively looks at research results.

What do you dislike about the product?

The insights (reporting) tool could use a bit of love – it's just not quite powerful enough yet. It needs a way to create a table of content, or to sort insights into categories. And Dovetail could be more helpful on the analysis side – the tagging tools and the current charts are great, but it would be even more valuable to see it go a step further, and help you do things like see which tags occur together, or do some NLP on the text, etc.

The company is definitely small but mighty, and they do seem to release new features often, so I'm sure all these things are coming!

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

We found that our research was scattered across many locations and was difficult to find once finished, which made it hard to follow decisions after the fact, or to understand how a team learned something. We also had a ton of qualitative research data and needed a better analysis tool for that. Dovetail has really helped with both issues, making our research much easier to analyze, store and share.

What do you like best about the product?

I love the UX and visual design of the platform. It's clean, open, and de-stresses the process and clutter of wading through research and insights. The project and tagging system they've created is highly flexible and easy to update/restructure (as will inevitably need to happen with any taxonomy!). And the video transcription service is invaluable. As a solo researcher, I love that I no longer have to take notes while I interview. It's also so easy to use that even people outside of UX - our data scientists and product managers – regularly go into Dovetail to search for feedback or findings on specific things.

I also love that Dovetail has an active Slack community which they monitor for product feedback and ideas. It's clear that they really care about their product and customers.

What do you dislike about the product?

As with any product, there are a few usability quirks that could be improved (e.g. the way notes and fields and tags work between projects -- difficult to describe in a short review). But there's really nothing hugely frusrating about the platform. I've also seen most of my gripes mentioned and responded to on their Slack, which makes me feel that they are being considered.

While the video transcription is pretty darn accurate, the punctuation and some words are incorrect often enough that I still need to go back and clean up the text. So I'm not sure the transcription saves me time, but it does reallocate my time and effort from notetaking in session to cleaning up notes outside of the session, which is a tradeoff I'm more than happy to make.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Prior to Dovetail, all of our research was stored in Google drive, either in Sheets or Docs. While the folder system was very well-organized, you had to know that something existed in order to look for and find it. In reality, the only person who would dig through the research was me (the UXR). With Dovetail's search and tagging system, it is SO easy to find feedback and insights from across various projects. It's so easy to use that designers, product managers, and our data science analysts regularly go into Dovetail on their own to search for quotes, insights, etc. related to a project they're working on. This has really broadened the scope and impact of UX research.

What do you like best about the product?

Dovetail has immensely sped up my analysis workflow. The tool really aims to help stitch together all of your data sources, streamline your process, and reduce time-consuming tedious tasks -- so you can focus on the truly challenging and fun part, the actual analysis. I love being able to easily lump lots of different data sources together and see themes across them. I love the ability to directly tag video transcripts and quickly find and re-play key moments from study sessions.

What do you dislike about the product?

It's still a new tool, so I've encountered a few bugs. The Dovetail team is really responsive though, and quick to fix them. Transcription accuracy isn't always perfect, especially if your participants have accents. But it's still in beta I think, so I expect it'll get better.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It's saving me hours and hours in my analysis workflow. I'm way more productive, and I love that it lets me focus on the part of research I love. I've also stopped worrying so much about taking verbatim notes in sessions, because I know I'll have a transcript tied to the video recording.

What do you like best about the product?

I love how quick and easy it is to upload records and videos, which are then beautifully transcribed, and so easy and intuitive to tag. It's been so great to have all my research in one place and searchable by the tags, which are a really useful feature for research synthesis.

What do you dislike about the product?

There really isn't any — it only helps keep your research more organized.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I am successfully able to store and tag transcripts in Dovetail, which I was never able to do before. The tagging has helped to cluster ideas across different research sessions, which is such a great benefit when you can do this all online and not with physical sticky notes.

What do you like best about the product?

- Everyone in our Organisation has automatic viewer access, for free! And with this free access, everyone can comment on research and @ people meaning that we can have our whole organization engaged in the research and aligned on the outcomes
- The tagging system is so flexible. I tag as I go typing longer, more descriptive tags during the first pass. I then return to my tagboard and simply drag and drop (so easy!) to merge the different tags together, and rename the tag to something shorter. Then automatically, that tag name is updated everywhere, no Command+F required! And you can create Extension Tags to go across multiple projects, enabling you to easily synsythise many different projects insights together
- When you tag the video/audio transcription, it AUTOMATICALLY CUTS THE VIDEO. I cannot stress how valuable this has been! Regardless of which transcription tool you use, you have always needed to scrub the video separately (and honestly, who has time for that?) in order to get the voice of the customer directly to the stakeholders. All I have to do now is upload my video, press 'transcribe', tag it and voila! The video is cut and I can share it straight away, all in a matter of minutes! If I'm preparing for a meeting, I'll just make a tag called 'Monday's meeting' and playback all my selected highlights together, so quick and easy.
- Dovetail supports several Zapier integrations, so we have all our company Typeforms (surveys) dropping straight into dedicated, 'feature' based columns with a Dovetail project. From here, the PMs and Designers can tag that feedback with the same Extension Tags they use for their other projects, ensuring they're getting a rounded perspective on their issues by seeing the typeform and 1:1 feedback together
- Dovetail has a Data tab in every project where you can see the amount of feedback tagged and identify trends. It has allowed us to surface trends we didn't know about as we were going off 'instinct' rather than hard numbers before.
- One key thing that sets Dovetail apart and why we choose to pay a subscription to them every month rather than any other company: is that they truely are innovative and customer-obessed. Last I checked the whole team (small but mighty) rotates through the customer support position -so I have received personal replies to feedback from the whole team, including their Founder & CEO. If they don't have a certain fetaure right now, I can guarantee they're working on it. Can't wait to benefit from all the smart solutions upcomming onbtheir roadmap, to make my research process even more efficient.

What do you dislike about the product?

It's fantastic, you shoud take out the free trial right now. You won't regret it.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I feel I covered a lot of this in the 'what do you like best' question however, just to recap:
- Visibility. The whole team can see all the research, comment on it and get alignment. Everyone in your organization automatically has free viewer access and can comment or @ people on research, allowing your whole team to be empowered and engaged with the research rather than mute bystanders
- The research and analysis is all in one place- no more chasing down random confluence links and gdrive files
- No more wasting time on research analysis 'prep' work! Just upload the video, and it automatically transcribes it. Then when you tag the transcription, it automatically cuts the video. No extra tools or time required.
- Zapier integrations mean you can have all your other research data (like surveys) dropping straight into Dovetail too, ensuring you balance all the available information rather than making decisions based on just your 1:1s
- Plus the UI is so clean and attractive, it's practically delighful to work on your research.

What do you like best about the product?

Video transcription, the ability to distill text into tags and tags into insights. Having all research searchable in 1 place so insights can be reused and new insights discovered over time.

What do you dislike about the product?

It can be diffuclt to curate long term insights which are not related to any 1 specific project, but more like trends you notice over time. You can do it, but it's not baked into the tool in the best way yet.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I'm doing lots of discovery research and using Dovetail to present back to my stakeholders all the issues I found, so no need to ceate separate slide decks.

What do you like best about the product?

As the Head of Design, my role is to teach, mentor, and coach designers in ensuring planning, execution, analysis, and presentation of their initiatives are completed to a high standard. Dovetail not only allows product designers and design researchers to complete these tasks, but it also teaches them how to follow our sensible defaults of ensuring planning is done and research is properly documented from clues to themes and insights. I love how there are new features coming all the time and the community & slack channel that supports each other to achieve best practice.

What do you dislike about the product?

I can't think of anything that I dislike.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

One of the core problems is ensuring all discovery research activities are documented in a central place that is easily accessible to the entire organisation and is simple and clear to read for everyone. Dovetail does this beautifully. It allows insights to be shared and the data that was used to form these opportunities is clearly tied and highlighted.

What do you like best about the product?

Great integration from uploading of various file type (video, audio, text), transcription, highlights and tagging, grouping of tags and insights.

Intuitive interface is suitable even for beginners.

What do you dislike about the product?

Transcript does not make sense.
No auto-scrolling of transcript - requires scrolling back and forth to review video.
No affinity diagramming for tags or insights.
Only 1 level of hierarchy for grouping & organization of tags.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Analyze qualitative data from usability testing, interview, contextual inquiry. Practically any form of qualitative data. Suitable even for junior ux practitioners unfamiliar with qualitative analysis.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

If you're looking for granular tagging and comprehensive analysis, look elsewhere. Hint - the OG tool targeted at ethnographers and anthropologist.

What do you like best about the product?

Dovetail simplifies the way we compile, organize, and share research and insights with internal and external stakeholders. From all the apps I tested, it was the only one flexible enough to match our process. It helps us get done with research faster and with the added bonus of working with their beautiful interface.

What do you dislike about the product?

The transcription editor could use some work. If you have to edit your transcripts heavily or do many interviews, you'll want a more powerful editor that helps you work faster.

Lots of little details could be improved, like seeing inline comments all in one place, creating your own shortcuts to move faster through the data, or being able to add an image to each project icon.

I'd like to get more users for the money I'm paying. 5 users can be filled in really fast if you work with a team. Also, providing access to certain projects to different users can be cumbersome. This should be simplified.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Gathering data can be a tedious, boring process. Dovetail's beautiful and easy to use interface makes it a fun experience that also saves me time.