Sentiment and signals
How sentiment is tagged and how signal cards are calculated.
Bristlenose tags each quote with sentiment and, on the Analysis page, summarises patterns as signal cards.
Sentiment
Each quote is tagged with one of seven sentiments, and an intensity from 1 (mild) to 3 (strong):
| Sentiment | Reading |
|---|---|
| Frustration | difficulty, annoyance, friction |
| Confusion | not understanding, uncertainty |
| Doubt | scepticism, worry, distrust |
| Surprise | something did not match expectations |
| Satisfaction | expectations met, the task worked |
| Delight | expectations exceeded |
| Confidence | feeling in control, trusting the result |
Frustration, confusion, and doubt are read as negative; satisfaction, delight, and confidence as positive; surprise is neutral — it flags something worth looking at, in either direction. Purely descriptive quotes are left untagged. The taxonomy is drawn from emotion science — see Research foundations.
Signal cards
A signal card summarises one column of the analysis grid across all participants. There are two kinds:
- Sentiment signals — one column per sentiment.
- Framework signals — one column per codebook group, once you have applied a codebook (for example, Norman's "Discoverability").
How a signal is measured
Each card combines three figures:
- Concentration — how often quotes land in this column compared with what you would expect if they were spread evenly. A value above 1 means the column is over-represented.
- Agreement — the effective number of distinct participants behind the column. Nine quotes from nine people count as strong agreement; nine quotes from one person count as one voice.
- Intensity — the average strength (1–3) of the sentiments involved.
These combine into a single signal strength, reported as strong, moderate, or emerging depending on how many participants and quotes support it and how concentrated it is.
Finding flags
Sentiment signals carry a short flag that names what the pattern looks like: Win, Problem, Niggle, Success, or Surprising. The flag is derived from whether the sentiment is positive or negative, how broadly it is shared, and how intense it is — a negative pattern shared widely and felt strongly is a Problem; the same sentiment from one person is a Niggle.
The figures and thresholds are deliberate starting points, not precise measurements. Treat the cards as a way to find where to look, then read the quotes themselves.