Qualitative coding of your interviews online, nothing to install
You mark a passage, give it a name, and all the quotes for that code end up together, each with its page and the way back to the original.
You don't need to learn software like Atlas.ti, MAXQDA, or NVivo. Nor to mark passages in Word to cut and paste. It isn't a full QDA suite: it's built for small-scale projects.
- Mark a passage and name it, while you read
- Several interviews in one folder, with a shared codebook
- Download the quotes for each code, or the whole codebook
Two paths, and you don't have to pick one
You can reach your codes by reading or by starting from categories you already had. Most analyses use both.
Mark the passage and give it a name
You read the whole interview, select what matters, and give it an existing or a new code. Add notes, merge codes, and run other operations in the same workspace.
Start from a category and see where it shows up
If you already have the dimensions of your interview guide, type one in and HILO gathers the passages where it comes up, even when it is said in other words.
One codebook for all your interviews
Interviews in the same project share the codebook: what you created in the third one is available in the first. When you find halfway through that two codes were the same, they merge across the whole folder at once, without going file by file.
The quotes, with their page, ready to paste
The quotes for each code with the page of each one, the full codebook with how many quotes each code has, and the document with your edits applied. Each quote already comes with its reference.
It ends with the document, not just the analysis
Qualitative analysis software leaves you with the analysis done and the document untouched: then you have to write the report separately, copying the quotes by hand. Here the path ends in a file: the quotes for a code with their page, the full codebook, or the document itself with the changes applied, as .docx. That is the difference between walking away with an analysis and walking away with something to hand in.
Your interviews aren't stored on our servers
Reading and coding happen on your computer. When you sign in, saving goes to your own Google Drive or Microsoft 365. Coding and annotating never needed artificial intelligence, so that work never leaves your browser.
You can read the whole interview, select a passage, and give it a name, or start from a category you already had and ask to see where it appears across the material. Codes that come out of a reading and codes that come out of a search are kept distinct, because it is a difference you later need to be able to report when you explain how the codebook was built.
Yes. Several interviews can form a folder and share one codebook, so a code created in the third interview is available for all of them. You can rename or merge codes across the whole folder at once, which is what you usually need when you discover halfway through that two codes were the same.
No. Coding and annotating happen on your computer and don't use AI. AI only comes in for topic search: with a free account (100 welcome hilos, the unit HILO uses to measure AI usage) it groups passages even when the exact term doesn't appear in the text; without an account, the search is by keyword.
The quotes for a code, with the page of each one and your notes. The full codebook, with a table of how many quotes each code has, followed by the quotes grouped by code. The document with your edits applied, as .docx. And the concept map of the active codes.
Without signing up, your work lives in your browser, which has a storage limit. HILO warns you before it fills up. Signing up is free, asks for no card, and the work you've already done isn't lost: it stays where it was.
No, and it's worth saying plainly. If you have many cases, a team of coders, audio or video to analyze, or you are going to do serious grounded theory, you need qualitative analysis software and no lightweight tool replaces it. HILO is for small-scale projects, when there is no time for a course and you don't want to pay for a complex software license.
Word documents (.docx) and PDF. PDFs are read, searched, and coded; the download with your changes is always .docx. If your transcript is in another format, you can also paste the text.
Try it without signing up
Upload an interview, mark three passages, and see how the codebook looks. If it's not useful, you'll know in ten minutes and you won't have spent anything.