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About Clusters

Clusters help visualise the relationships between different topics or themes that emerge from your dataset. Each cluster represents a distinct topic or theme, with the proximity of clusters indicating their similarity or relatedness. The size of each circle reflects the importance or prevalence of a topic within the dataset.

• Larger circles represent highly frequent or dominant topics.
• Smaller circles indicate less frequently mentioned topics.

Tip: Clusters are a great way to understand the connections between the words you encounter in the Words & Terms section and the related topics discussed in responses. Especially with extensive datasets, these clusters provide a valuable starting point for exploring responses and generating ideas for structuring your tagging system. They also help pinpoint areas for deeper analysis through tags and highlights.

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Where to find Clusters

To access Clusters, navigate to the Explore tab and select “Clusters” from the Navigation Tabs:

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Clusters options

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Cluster Level (Per Record or Per Sentence)

Toggle between:

• Per Record: Groups topics based on entire responses.
• Per Sentence: Identifies themes within individual sentences, providing more granular insights. (Recommended for capturing nuanced topics)

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Number of clusters

Select between 3 to 10 clusters, depending on how broadly or narrowly you want to group topics.

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View as plot or topic distribution

Choose how to visualise the clusters:

• Cluster Plot: Displays a spatial representation, showing the relationships between topics.
• Topic Distribution: Displays a ranked list of topics as a bar chart based on prevalence in the dataset.

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Set Topic Level

• Primary Topic Only: Focuses on the main topic for each response.
• Include Secondary Topic: Display a second topic ring for each cluster.

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Understanding Cluster Topics

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Topics & Representative Words

Each cluster includes:

• Topics: The broad topics identified in responses.
• Percentage: How frequently each topic appears in the dataset.
• Representative Words: Key terms within each topic, ranked from low to high saturation, with a percentage indicating their prominence.

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Matching records

Displays the individual responses that match the currently selected topic.

• Representative words in each response are highlighted for easy identification.
• Click any response to open it in Submission Reader for further review.

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Selecting and Tagging Responses

To tag responses at the record level:

1. Select responses using the checkboxes.
2. Click the Tag dropdown.
3. Choose a tag and click Add.
4. Confirm by selecting OK—the tag will be applied to selected responses.

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Using the Cluster Tool

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Analyse Button

Once settings are configured, click Analyse to process your dataset. The tool will:

• Read through responses.
• Group sentences or responses discussing similar or related topics.

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Topic Selection

Click on a topic to:

• View its representative words.
• See matching responses related to that topic.

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Refresh Button

Click Refresh to re-run the clustering process. Note: Cluster results may vary slightly with each refresh, as clustering algorithms dynamically adjust based on the dataset.

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Download Cluster Chart

If you want to save your cluster visualisation, click the Download button to export the chart.