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The Brilliant Club works with schools and universities across the UK to support students from all background access the most competitive universities and succeed when they get there.

Use this Guide if you want to make the most of the new AI-powered tools in Miro. Miro is online whiteboard software which many digital teams use to store and present user research findings. Now Miro offers AI-powered tools that can help people analyse their user research data more quickly. 

Steps to managing user research findings using Miro AI.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools use algorithms known as large language models (LLMs). Once a generative AI program has been trained on a vast amount of writing, it can identify common patterns, search for information, and combine these to generate new text.

Software companies are using AI tools to offer new features. For example, Miro’s current AI tools include automated tips and prompts called ‘Sidekicks’, one-click template shortcuts, and the ability to generate text and diagrams from data added to a Miro board.

The Brilliant Club works with schools and universities across the UK to support students from all background access the most competitive universities and succeed when they get there.

They gathered qualitative stakeholder data through interviews and feedback surveys with students, teachers, and tutors using various tools such as Google Forms, Hotjar, Microsoft Forms, and Salesforce surveys. They had a very large amount of text to sort through, for example 800 written comments from students alone.

The team were already using Miro, and they wondered if the program’s new AI tools could help them save time by scanning all of the responses for them and creating a summary of the key themes.

If you’d like to use Miro AI to help you analyse and organise your user research findings, think about how you will collect and record your data. How will you add your data to Miro? For example, you could:

  • Add sticky notes to a Miro board directly, perhaps in a workshop

  • Copy and paste data from a spreadsheet

  • Copy and paste text onto sticky notes from a document

  • Embed files in a range of formats (including PDFs and images) into a Miro board

  • Integrate directly with some programs such as Asana and Google Workspace.

The Brilliant Club exported all of the written feedback they had received from different sources into an Excel spreadsheet. This allowed them to copy and paste each column onto a Miro board as individual sticky notes in just two clicks.

Miro also has the option to copy data from a spreadsheet and paste it onto a Miro board as a table. The Brilliant Club wanted the responses to appear as individual sticky notes which they could group and organise, and which would have a strong visual impact.

Highlight the sections of your Miro board with the data you want to analyse, then click the ‘Create with AI’ sparkle icon on the left hand menu. You can choose to create an output in several different formats:

  • Sticky notes e.g. user stories or user ‘pain points’

  • Document e.g. a summary of key themes

  • Image e.g. illustration or comic

  • Diagram e.g. flow chart or mind map

Select the format you would like, and then write a detailed prompt in the text box describing exactly what you want. For example, “describe the main challenges these users encounter when they try to register for an event online”.

If the first response generated by the AI tool doesn’t fit perfectly, you can adjust your instructions and repeat the prompt or manually edit the summary to make it more accurate. It’s important to be familiar with the data yourself so that you can quickly spot any errors.

The Brilliant Club highlighted the sticky notes on their Miro board containing feedback from students, and asked Miro AI to create a document “summarising the key themes emerging from these answers”.

The AI tool returned several subheadings such as "tutor support," "program engagement," and "use of the hub," along with brief summaries of each theme. On the whole they found the answers were useful and accurate.

Using Miro AI in this way saved the team a lot of time. There were some challenges, though:

  • Miro AI couldn’t automatically group the sticky notes by the themes it had identified; the team needed to do that manually.

  • Other prompts gave less useful answers and needed more refinement, e.g. “Write a user experience plan” needed several attempts.

  • The AI tool sometimes struggled to make sense of the data because it lacks the specialist knowledge and context of educational institutions that the team have.

The Brilliant Club view Miro AI as a tool they can use, not a complete solution.

After you have used Miro AI to analyse your data you can produce further content such as:

  • Summaries

  • Illustrations

  • Charts and diagrams

  • User stories

  • User personas

  • User journey maps.

Group related sticky notes under relevant themes and use Miro’s design tools to make the presentation clear and engaging.

AI technology is rapidly advancing, and Miro frequently updates its features. Regularly review and update your Miro AI processes as the tool evolves.

The Brilliant Club use Miro to organise and share their findings as well as to analyse their data. Grouping sticky notes together, or using colour coding for different themes creates a strong visual impact and helps stakeholders quickly grasp the major points raised in user feedback.

When The Brilliant Club started using Miro AI it used a chatbot style interface which was replaced by the Create with AI menu a few months later. They will keep exploring how AI can support their research.

Further information