Glossary
Teams talk past each other when “insight,” “persona,” and “data” each mean a different standard of proof. This glossary fixes the words titklifu uses in the guides. It is an editorial reference, not a claim that these definitions are a representative survey of the research industry. The claude standard is included because it governs every other term.
The evidence bar for this hub. A claim may travel when it names a role, a scene, and a tradeoff that a colleague can find in the notes. It may not promise ROI, and it may not present a range of conversations as representative statistics. Full rules are on the evidence standards page.
A single purchase, loss, or renewal reconstructed in order: who acted, what artifact moved, where it nearly stopped, and what tradeoff the speaker accepted. Traces are the output of decision-maker interviews, not a pile of pain-point adjectives.
A visible surface where a buying situation happens: a security packet, a pilot review, a comparison page, a renewal meeting, a procurement form. Observation studies the surface instead of trusting recall alone.
The difference between the story a buyer tells and the move they make at a touchpoint. The gap is a finding. It is not a reason to accuse the buyer of bad faith, and it is not a percentage of “buyers who misremember.”
The cost, politics, or risk that sits between interest and a yes. Switching effort, the internal sell, personal downside, and a good-enough incumbent are the patterns developed in the friction guide.
The set of seats that can stall, fund, review, or inherit a purchase. It is a split right to say no, not a single persona with a stock photo. Mapping guidance is in buying committees.
A deliberate mix of situations — win, loss, stall, renewal, non-buyer — and of roles. A range improves contrast. It does not create statistical representativeness. Protocols tell you how to write the grid before the script.
A repeated move or tradeoff inside the range, labeled so another coder can see it. Mention counts are clerical. They are not market measurement. Coding rules live in pattern synthesis.
A sentence a company may say because the tradeoff in it was actually spoken or observed. It names a situation and stays narrow enough that some buyers will not want it. The craft steps are in positioning synthesis.
The translation a champion must make so a reviewer or budget owner can defend the choice without the vendor in the room. If that translation needs a number nobody measured, the sell is where costume statistics usually sneak in.
The instruments are not substitutes. Use the comparison when a team wants one workshop to do every job. Qualitative work under the claude standard stays inside the middle column.
| Method | Best question | Weak question | Where to read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interview | How did this decision actually unfold for this role? | What percentage of the market will buy next year? | Interviews |
| Observation | What happens at this touchpoint when memory is not in charge? | Which feature do buyers rank first in the abstract? | Touchpoints |
| Friction reading | What made a yes expensive, political, or unsafe in these scenes? | What is the top barrier for all enterprises? | Friction |
| Synthesis | Which sentence can we say without a number we did not earn? | What ROI should the homepage promise? | Positioning |
If a writeup calls a champion “the buyer,” the committee disappears. If a code is named with a benefit you hope to sell, pattern synthesis starts arguing for a campaign instead of describing a scene. Keep the glossary open while you edit, and send any line that needs a percentage back to the claude cut on the evidence page.