This guide walks you through creating a Diagnostic, building and testing the interview plan, and launching the interviews.

For access requirements and an overview of the workflow, start with New User Onboarding for Running a Diagnostic. Read Best Practices for Running a Diagnostic for guidance on choosing your question, planning participation, and using the findings.

Open Diagnostic and select New diagnostic. Arist creates a project for your active team, assigns a temporary name, and opens the setup conversation.

In Draft, the setup chat sits beside the canvas where your interview plan takes shape. Describe what you want to understand and provide context about the business question. The setup conversation asks follow-up questions to help clarify your objective and develop the plan.

Add organizational data, such as previous research, survey results, or performance information, to give Diagnostic context alongside the interviews.

Use the attachment control, drag a file onto the workspace, or paste a copied file using Command+V on Mac or Ctrl+V on Windows. You can paste files anywhere on the workspace page without selecting the chat first.

The initial plan includes suggested cohorts and questions for each group. Review the plan and use the chat to request changes.

Review the Readout card to check the project’s purpose and the decision its findings will support. The setup conversation fills in these settings, and you can edit them on the card:

For how these choices affect recommendations and reports, see Reviewing Diagnostic Findings and Reports.

If you remove an uploaded file from the Files card, its earlier attachment in the chat is marked as removed.

The interview plan organizes interviewees into cohorts, usually by role. Each cohort has its own topics so you can ask questions relevant to that group’s experience.

Use All interviewees for topics you want to include across every cohort. Each group receives those shared topics alongside its own.

Review the combined topics for each cohort. Arist displays a warning when a cohort’s own topics and the shared topics total more than six.

Use the setup chat to refine the cohorts and questions before approving the plan. Once approved, you’ll need to reopen the plan to edit its content.

You can also download the interview plan for review. The download menu offers Markdown, Word, and PDF. Markdown downloads immediately; Word and PDF show Preparing… while the file is generated.

On the AI interviewer card, select a primary language and any additional languages you want to offer.

Supported languages are English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese. Multilingual interviews must be enabled for your organization. If they are not enabled, the language controls are hidden and interviews are offered in English.

Interviewees who use a web link choose from the available languages when they begin. Their selection applies to the landing page, spoken introduction, and interview questions. Phone dial-in always uses the primary language.

Choose the languages before reviewing the voices. Voice options are organized by language, and the available rows update when you add or remove a language.

The AI interviewer card shows a voice for each enabled language, with a default already selected.

To review the available choices:

Some languages have only one available voice. In that case, the voice is shown without a selection control.

Changing the voice for one language leaves the other languages’ voices unchanged.

Use the setup chat to specify the interview length. There is no separate on-screen field for this setting.

You can set a whole-number target between 3 and 45 minutes and choose how strictly the interviewer follows it:

For example, you can ask the setup chat to use a hard limit of 10 minutes. Changes to the time setting update the interviewer automatically.

Interview depth controls how much the interviewer follows up on answers. Arist must enable this setting for your organization, so contact your Arist Customer Success contact if you want to use it.

Once enabled, ask the setup chat to use one of these options:

Depth is separate from the time target. Brisk does not require a minute target, and under a soft limit the interviewer can still ask interviewees for more time if the interview runs long. If you also set a hard time limit, that limit restricts how much follow-up the interviewer can complete.

Use Ask for participants’ names on the AI interviewer card to control whether the interviewer asks interviewees to identify themselves.

Cohort or role information remains available when names are not collected.

You can change this setting after interviews have started. Changes apply to new interviews; completed interviews retain the setting used when they began.

The introduction includes a greeting, an explanation that the interviewer is AI, the purpose of the interview, an optional duration estimate, a recording disclosure, and a closing line.

You can edit the purpose line to explain why you are asking interviewees to take part. Select the editable text on the AI interviewer card or request a change through the setup chat. Both update the same purpose line.

The other parts of the introduction follow a fixed structure. The closing line adjusts according to whether names are being collected. To change whether a duration estimate is spoken, use the setup chat.

For multilingual interviews, edit the purpose line in English. Arist translates the introduction into the other enabled languages. Use the language preview tabs to read those versions; translated previews are read-only.

Complete your edits before approving the plan. The purpose line’s inline editor becomes read-only after approval.

Use the preview links on the interview plan to experience the interview before launch. There is one link for each cohort and, when the plan has shared topics, an All interviewees link for the version without a cohort-specific role.

Select Preview interview to open a preview in a new tab. Check each cohort’s version so you can review its questions and the interview experience.

Previews do not create an interview record or transcript, and they do not contribute to the analysis or results.

Each preview uses the current plan when you open it. If you make changes, reopen the preview to test the updated version.

To replace the preview links, use the control labeled Generate a new preview link. The previous links stop working once they are replaced.

When the plan is ready, select Approve plan on the interview plan card, or ask the setup chat to approve it.

In the setup chat, a confirmation titled Approve the interview plan appears. Select Confirm to approve or Cancel to return without approving.

Approval creates a web link for each cohort and starts preparing the cohort phone numbers. The card displays Plan approved, and a matching event appears in the chat.

Your project remains in Draft, and interviews stay closed until you launch them.

To revise the interview content after approval, select Reopen to make the plan editable again. Settings such as name collection and interview timing can still be adjusted independently of the approved question content.

Once the plan is approved and you are ready to begin collection, select Launch interviews at the top of the page, or request the launch through the project chat.

Review the confirmation titled Launch these interviews?, then select Confirm to proceed or Cancel to stay in setup. In the project chat, the confirmation card title is Open the interviews.

Launching opens each cohort’s web link and phone line and moves the project to Active. Interviewees can then begin using the access details you share.

Launching does not automatically send invitations. Follow Collecting Diagnostic Interviews to share access, monitor participation, and manage collection.

After launch, use the project chat to adjust settings that remain available, such as name collection and interview timing.