Product design skills

research-synthesis

Synthesize user research into themes, insights, and recommendations. Use when you have interview transcripts, survey results, usability test notes, support tickets, or NPS responses that need to be distilled into patterns, user segments, and prioritized next steps.

Category
User research
Use when
  • synthesize this research
  • turn these interview transcripts into themes
  • summarize survey results into insights
  • distill usability test notes into recommendations
  • what are the key themes in this feedback
Works on
  • Interview transcripts or notes, survey results (CSV or pasted), usability-test notes, support tickets, NPS/CSAT responses, or app-store reviews
Produces
  • Markdown synthesis report: executive summary, quote-backed themes with prevalence, insight-to-opportunity table (impact/effort), user segments, prioritized recommendations, open questions, methodology notes
Works with
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Amp, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, VS Code
Tags
user-research, synthesis, thematic-analysis, insights, qualitative, quantitative
Source
anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins by Anthropic · Apache-2.0 · adapted for this repository
Related skills
user-research-cookiysilver-synthesizeux-research-workflow

Instructions from SKILL.md

/research-synthesis

If you see unfamiliar placeholders or need to check which tools are connected, see CONNECTORS.md.

Synthesize user research data into actionable insights. See the user-research skill for research methods, interview guides, and analysis frameworks.

Usage

/research-synthesis $ARGUMENTS

What I Accept

  • Interview transcripts or notes
  • Survey results (CSV, pasted data)
  • Usability test recordings or notes
  • Support tickets or feedback
  • NPS/CSAT responses
  • App store reviews

Output

## Research Synthesis: [Study Name]
**Method:** [Interviews / Survey / Usability Test] | **Participants:** [X]
**Date:** [Date range] | **Researcher:** [Name]

### Executive Summary
[3-4 sentence overview of key findings]

### Key Themes

#### Theme 1: [Name]
**Prevalence:** [X of Y participants]
**Summary:** [What this theme is about]
**Supporting Evidence:**
- "[Quote]" — P[X]
- "[Quote]" — P[X]
**Implication:** [What this means for the product]

#### Theme 2: [Name]
[Same format]

### Insights → Opportunities

| Insight | Opportunity | Impact | Effort |
|---------|-------------|--------|--------|
| [What we learned] | [What we could do] | High/Med/Low | High/Med/Low |

### User Segments Identified
| Segment | Characteristics | Needs | Size |
|---------|----------------|-------|------|
| [Name] | [Description] | [Key needs] | [Rough %] |

### Recommendations
1. **[High priority]** — [Why, based on which findings]
2. **[Medium priority]** — [Why]
3. **[Lower priority]** — [Why]

### Questions for Further Research
- [What we still don't know]

### Methodology Notes
[How the research was conducted, any limitations or biases to note]

If Connectors Available

If ~~user feedback is connected:

  • Pull support tickets, feature requests, and NPS responses to supplement research data
  • Cross-reference themes with real user complaints and requests

If ~~product analytics is connected:

  • Validate qualitative findings with usage data and behavioral metrics
  • Quantify the impact of identified pain points

If ~~knowledge base is connected:

  • Search for prior research studies and findings to compare against
  • Publish the synthesis to your research repository

Tips

  1. Include raw quotes — Direct participant quotes make insights credible and memorable.
  2. Separate observations from interpretations — "5 of 8 users clicked the wrong button" is an observation. "The button placement is confusing" is an interpretation.
  3. Quantify where possible — "Most users" is vague. "7 of 10 users" is specific.

Supporting files

2 more files in this skill's folder. Markdown opens as a page, other text files open as source, and anything else downloads as it is.

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