Quirkos product overview

Quirkos is a simple qualitative data analysis software that gives researchers a visual and intuitive way to manage, analyze, and explore their research. Used by qualitative researchers in hundreds of institutions around the world, it was designed by researchers to be the software they wanted to use. It has a live visual interface that keeps them close to their data and a few flexible features that don’t get in the way.
Quirkos is easy to learn, flexible, and reliable. It can be useful in a variety of ways aside from research, such as for academic users trying to quickly understand detailed data, for the public sector gaining insight into the provision and use of services, or for commercial users creating a cost-effective workflow to provide deep revelations. The software lets you store your data in the cloud or on your computer. Importing data from any text source, coding, and retrieving them is easy and straightforward.

Pros of Quirkos

Fast code and retrieve: Quirkos makes coding and retrieving of sections of texts quick and easy. You can drag and drop a selection of text into a Quirk bubble to tag it as relevant to a particular topic or node. Keyboard shortcuts are also available for faster coding.
Powerful data exploration tools: Quirkos includes several powerful qualitative data exploration tools. You can search through text for keywords, use a cluster view to see relationships of topics, create side-by-side comparison views, or visualize qualitative data with word clouds.

Cons of Quirkos

Multimedia objects: Some users would like to see support for multimedia objects in addition to text, PDF, Word, and other rich text data sources.

Breakdown of core features

Easy visual interface

Quirkos has a highly visual and colorful interface that is consistent across different OS platforms. A drag-and-drop interface lets you code relevant text quickly into color-coded themes and bubbles. Several views quickly show how bubbles are growing and how they get closer to one another as relationships are discovered, including connected nodes and text overlaps. Color-coded highlights show topics within the text.

Qualitative data exploration

Quirkos lets you search through text for keywords with fast results showing all previous coding. You can also code directly from search results. Search from one source or from the whole project in a click of a button, with each search result expanding to show surrounding context. Each data source can be defined by an unlimited number of categories. Look at results from a sub group of sources or run queries side by side to compare results from one group to another. Other features include word cloud and word frequency data.

Multi-source mixed-methods research

Quirkos allows you to create projects with dozens of sources that you can manage and categorize in several ways, such as discrete, numerical, or multiple values properties. Mixed-methods research lets you use interview transcripts, articles, memos, and other qualitative sources. Bring in data from mixed-method surveys into the software such as from spreadsheets or survey platforms. Import text, PDF, and Word files directly or create a new source from clipboard text. Copy and paste any data into the software, including from websites and Facebook posts.

Interactive reports

Quirkos can produce graphs and reports to summarize quantitative and discrete data. Generate a report for the whole project complete with graphical views and coded text sorted accordingly. You can also export a report covering only a section of the data such as a specific age group of survey respondents. Export data as CSV to work on them in Excel or IBM SPSS. Images can be loaded to PowerPoint or Word. You can generate PDF reports that can be shared or printed in paper. Creating a dynamic and interactive website of your findings for visitors to explore is also possible.

(Last updated on 12/10/2020 by Abby Dykes)