Affinity diagrams are useful when you need to generate solutions or establish patterns and themes in your research data. It's one of the best ways to analyze qualitative data derived in the pre-design phase. For example, it’s a great way to build user personas after carrying out diary studies or user interviews. You can also use it to sort through large amounts of user feedback to arrive at actionable insights that can be prioritized.^[1]

However, the technique does come with its caveats. For instance, it can be difficult to get a remote team to collaborate on an affinity diagram, although there are tools like Lucidchart that might help simplify the process. It is also not particularly useful in cases where there are very few data items.