# How AI can help in User Research **Author:** Vidit Bhargava (Pixel Posts) **Published:** 29 January 2025 **Length:** 3 mins (681 words) ## In Summary Reflecting on research for a thesis about students’ relationships with technology, Vidit Bhargava describes using NotebookLM to organise and revisit interviews rather than conduct the research on his behalf. The tool helped him retrieve source-linked insights, assemble summaries and timelines, and apply a Jobs to Be Done framework to interview material. His findings concerned smartphone distraction, preferences for tactile study tools and distinctions between unwanted distraction and deliberate breaks. He presents AI as an aid to researchers’ synthesis and interpretation. **Source:** [https://blog.viditb.com/how-ai-can-help-in-user-research/](https://blog.viditb.com/how-ai-can-help-in-user-research/) ## What might this mean for us? Could source-linked AI tools help Higher Education revisit interviews and teaching conversations without substituting automated summaries for participants’ meaning? Electric Dreams’ dialogic documentation pilots could explore how searchable transcripts and visualisations support collective reflection. What verification, consent and data governance would be necessary, and how might teams preserve unexpected insights that do not fit an imposed analytical framework? ## Links in this reading - [Designing Distraction-Free Computers, thesis project](https://blog.viditb.com/designing-distraction-free-computers/) - [Interview protocol (PDF)](https://viditb.com/posts/aiuxResearch/pdf/interviewProtocol.pdf) - [NotebookLM interview summaries (PDF)](https://viditb.com/posts/aiuxResearch/pdf/notebookLM_interview.pdf) - [Jobs to Be Done reference, Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/jobstobedoneroad0000wunk/page/2/mode/2up) - [Applying Jobs to Be Done to capturing ideas (PDF)](https://viditb.com/posts/aiuxResearch/pdf/jtbd_captureIdeas.pdf) - [Applying Jobs to Be Done to free time (PDF)](https://viditb.com/posts/aiuxResearch/pdf/jtbd_freeTime.pdf)