Themes are thematic collections that group related highlights. A theme consists of a title, description, color, summary, linked highlights, and a reel. Themes enable you to organize insights across multiple participants, identify patterns, quantify which issues matter most, and gain a valuable end-to-end experience from analysis to insights.
In this article:
How to generate thematic analysis
How to add highlights to themes
How to create a highlight
Highlights can be created manually or generated with AI.
AI-generated highlights
For unmoderated studies, Maze automatically generates highlights from clip transcripts when participant sessions are completed. Each AI-generated highlight includes a note summarizing the key observation from the clip, giving you a head start on analysis without any manual effort.
AI-generated highlights appear in the Highlights tab for each participant session. You can review, edit, or delete them — a delete button is available on any AI-generated highlight, letting you remove highlights that aren't relevant to your analysis.
Both AI-generated and manually created highlights can be used for thematic analysis.
Manually created highlights
To create a highlight manually, from the Results page, select the Participants tab. Click the Highlight button beneath the clip, select the part of the Clip you'd like to highlight, add any specific notes for the highlight and click Add highlight.
How to create a theme
From the Results page, select the Themes tab on the left-hand side and click Create theme. Add your theme name, description, and color. If you need to edit a theme, simply hover over the theme in the left panel, click the ... menu, and select Edit.
From the dedicated theme page, you can add an analysis - a summary and findings to help others understand this theme.
Themes can also be created on the spot, directly from the highlight modal. Click Add themes and select an existing theme or type to create a new theme and press enter.
Themes can also be created and edited via the Manage button.
How to generate thematic analysis
Thematic analysis automatically identifies patterns and insights across all participant sessions within your unmoderated study, transforming individual participant feedback into comprehensive, actionable themes. This powerful feature analyzes your clips to surface key topics, sentiment trends, and findings that help you understand the bigger picture from your research.
For unmoderated studies, you can use AI to automatically group your highlights into themes. From the Themes tab, click Thematic analysis. Ensure you have at least 10 responses to start identifying meaningful patterns. You can run the analysis from scratch with AI-generated themes, or by using your own. When you're ready, click Run analysis. Give the AI a moment to analyze your highlights — once complete, your themes will appear on the Results page, each with an AI-generated summary documenting the patterns and insights found.
If you select Start from scratch to run AI-generated themes, you'll be prompted with a modal confirming that existing themes will be excluded from the analysis and may be deleted. Click Run analysis to continue or click Back to keep your current themes and instead select "Use your own" in the previous step. If the run was successful, the Thematic Analysis block will show Analysis complete.
You can adjust any AI-generated theme summary using the Edit button. Thematic analysis works with both AI-generated highlights and manually created highlights.
How to add highlights to themes
To add highlights to specific themes, navigate to any highlights tab, click the Add themes or + button, and select or add your theme of choice. The same highlight can be assigned to multiple themes, and the same theme can be assigned to multiple highlights.
Sharing themes and reels
Reels are now integrated directly into themes, so you must create a theme in order to create a reel.
How to create a reel from a theme
A theme has a reel by default, and all highlights that are added to the theme will be automatically added to that reel.
How to share themes and reels
Reels can be used to share themes, either on their own or paired with a theme analysis.
Direct link or Embed
From the Results page, click the Themes tab, select your theme, click the Share button on the right-hand side, and select Theme or Highlight Reel.
If selecting Theme, the Theme-Preview modal will open, and you can either click the link button (to share a quick link to the theme) or click Share to adjust permissions and copy a link or to access an embed link.
Pasting the share link into a new tab opens a report-like view of the highlight alongside the clip. This allows stakeholders to quickly read the theme's key takeaways and watch the supporting highlights, preserving full context and integrating your insights.
Highlights can also be toggled into view from the theme preview page by clicking Show all. Hide all will collapse the highlights from view.
If you need to organize and reorder your highlights to craft your ideal narrative, you can do so from the themes tab. Select your theme, hover over a particular highlight on the left-hand side, and drag to reorder.
Still need help?
If you have any questions or concerns, please let our Support team know — we'll be happy to help!