User research is how a product team turns individual conversations into patterns worth acting on. Productboard centralizes that work, and Spark, Productboard's AI agent, automates a version of the synthesis from the feedback and transcripts you already collect.
This article covers how user research teams get the most out of Productboard. It applies whether you're new to the platform or already using Spark alongside your team.
Note: Every workspace has access to Spark, but activation is up to your admins. Anything described below that references Spark requires it to be enabled on your workspace. See Activating Spark in your workspace for details.
In this article:
- Turning transcripts and notes into findings automatically
- Connecting a single interview to a pattern you've already seen
- Recruiting and segmenting interview candidates
- Organizing and sharing research in one place
- Linking findings back to features
- See also
Turning transcripts and notes into findings automatically
Store interview transcripts, survey results, and usability test recordings as feedback notes in Productboard, so they're searchable and shareable across your team.
If Spark is enabled, it reads that feedback continuously and generates findings, which are structured observations about a recurring theme or unmet need. Each finding links back to the specific notes that informed it, so you can verify the pattern yourself instead of rereading everything.
Ongoing signals, like support tickets or SatisMeter survey responses, feed the same pipeline. A weak signal from a survey can end up corroborating something you heard in a session.
For more information, see Spark: Findings and opportunities and Productboard and SatisMeter integration.
Connecting a single interview to a pattern you've already seen
After a new interview, check the findings board to see whether what you just heard matches a pattern Spark has already detected. From the Main menu, select Library > Findings.
This helps you avoid two failure modes at once: over-indexing on a single conversation, or dismissing something that's actually a broader trend.
Recruiting and segmenting interview candidates
Build a list of interview candidates from the feedback linked to a feature, using the Companies and Users boards instead of a spreadsheet. Segment candidates by employee size, persona, plan, or customer segment to keep your sample representative.
For the full walkthrough of candidate recruiting, see Best practices for designers, which covers this in more depth. For segment setup, see Work with customer segments.
Organizing and sharing research in one place
Group related notes into insights boards around a theme, a segment, or a research question. Anyone on the team can see the collection without recreating your filters.
Use note templates to capture interview and research notes in a consistent format, so patterns are easier to compare across sessions.
For more information, see Insights boards: Filter and process feedback and Create templates in description fields.
Linking findings back to features
Link a finding or a piece of feedback directly to the feature it relates to. This gives product managers and engineers a clear, traceable reason behind a prioritization call, instead of a secondhand summary.
For more information, see Link user feedback to related feature ideas using insights.