Danielle Jacques from Blue Matter Consulting presented at MAXDAYS 2025 on “Using MAXQDA to analyze large-scale global qualitative primary market research for a life sciences client.” Their clients include pharmaceutical companies. Jacques shared the background and research questions. Jacques and team conducted 88 virtual interviews. Fifty six were doctors. Thirty two patients and care partners included those currently using the product and those not using it. Jacques shared how they organized document groups in sets. Jacques noted that they collected data from the interviews that they added as variables. They mentioned they set up a spreadsheet with variables and respondents to then import into MAXQDA. Jacques explained that taking the time to organize variables helped create visualizations later on with the matrix viewer. Jacques demonstrated in MAXQDA how to create document groups by activating specific variables. Both inductive and deductive coding were used. Jacques noted that they created inductive codes and reviewed earlier transcripts to make sure they were not missing any. Merging codes and using subcodes helped keep the code system organized, said Jacques. Jacques said that there is no “right or wrong” way of organizing codes. Code organization depends on the methodology used and preferences. Jacques explained that the Smart Coding Tool can help refine codes. Jacques used document memos to write notes for interviews. Memos have different symbols that can be assigned (consistent) meanings. For example, Jacques and team use exclamation and question marks for interviews to revisit. Jacques explained that the Retrieved Segments window allows a user to review all data within specified code(s). In an example, the segment matrix Jacques set up compared one code across three countries. Jacques also used the code frequency matrix to analyze document groups (“markets”). This allows for at-a-glance comparison of the frequency of codes. Jacques used Text Search and Autocode to answer specific research questions. Jacques recommends using the text search and autocode function when you know a specific text you want to find. For compliance reasons, Jacques was unable to use AI. Jacques was the only coder in this project. At the end of the session, Jacques emphasized the importance of code organization for any project. I’ll keep that in mind as well as the use of document sets.
