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Affinity diagrams
An effective way of organising
customer data. Good for making sense of a lot of data from from
customer research and encourages full team participation in the
development of a customer centred product definition.
Description
Typically, from each customer interview, the team may identify
anything from 10 to 100 individual statements which are connected
to the product. Each of these statements can be interpreted to
identify the underlying need. The affinity diagram is a
relatively simple tool to enable these customer needs to be
organised hierarchically, based on clustering and group
discussion. Most importantly, it helps to build team affinity
with the customer requirements.
Method
Assemble the team
Generating an affinity diagram should be a team activity,
preferably with input from some representative customers.
It can be useful to split the team into pairs, so that
people can discuss their insights and confirm their
thinking.
Write all customer statements on
individual 'post-it' notes
Based on interviews, observation and customer research,
write each individual customer statement onto a post it
note. There will be a lot, but that is the intention. It
is beneficial at this stage to stick to one colour note.
Make sure that each statement is referenced, so that the
original source can be referred to if necessary.
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There are no rules as to how the statements should be
clustered. But, there should be no pre-determined
category headings to which statements are assigned. The
category headings should emerge based upon what is
contained within the statements. It can be effective to
ban words that the development team are familiar with,
such as 'quality' or 'speed'. Typically, the team should
aim to have no more than 5-6 statements in a cluster -
this will help them to think of alternative clustering
arrangements.
Name each group
Give each cluster a 'name', which relates to the
statements. A good cluster name is written as though the
user is talking to the design team in direct, immediate
language. Write the group names on a different coloured
post-it note. The group name can be thought of as the
interpreted need.
Cluster the groups
There will be many groups and these should be clustered
into a higher level cluster. This helps to break down the
vast assortment of data into manageable chunks. Again,
the clusters should be named to define the specific issue
of concern. This hierarchical structure should tell a
story about the needs of the user. If there is enough
data, further levels of grouping may be required.
Figure 1:
Affinity diagram example
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