--- title: Transcribing user interviews with Amazon Transcribe description: A quick 'how to' on using Amazon's Transcribe service to turn user interview recordings into text-transcripts. url: https://canonical.com/blog/transcribing-user-interviews-with-amazon-transcribe?format=md --- 1. [Blog](https://canonical.com/blog) 2. Article --- [Will Grant](https://canonical.com/blog/author/wgx "More about Will Grant") 15 April 2021 # Transcribing user interviews with Amazon Transcribe [Design](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/design) [Research](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/research) [ux](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/ux) --- Share the article We try to do as much user testing as we can at Canonical, and one of the techniques that we employ is user interviews. Our UX team will talk to users regularly – usually there’s a user interview happening every day of the week. Aside: if you’re interested, you can sign up to join the [Canonical user interview panel](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfA3VCm9BzcSQEuoS3Q1KBFR4acVCC-fBD9X0D3y7FHxn0jZg/viewform). A couple of weeks ago I had amassed a decent quantity of user interviews that I needed to transcribe. ~~Necessity~~ laziness being the mother of invention, I decided to look around for a “quick and dirty” solution to avoid typing out 4 to 5 hours of audio speech. I had great results with the [AWS ‘Transcribe’ service](https://aws.amazon.com/transcribe/) and had my transcripts done in 30 minutes – so, here’s a quick “how to” guide for using Amazon’s Transcribe service to create text transcripts of your user interviews. ## Step one: prepare the audio file Grab the video file that you’ve downloaded from Google Meet, (or Zoom, or your video conferencing tool of choice) and run it through [ffmpeg](https://www.ffmpeg.org/) to extract just the audio: ``` ffmpeg -i infile.mp4 outfile.mp3 ``` If you don’t have ffmpeg, you can install it on MacOS with homebrew using ``` brew install ffmpeg ``` or, on Ubuntu: ``` sudo snap install ffmpeg ``` …or use the relevant package manager of choice for your OS. ## Step two: upload the file Upload the resulting .mp3 audio file you just created to an Amazon S3 bucket, and copy the “S3 URI”. ## Step three: create a new Amazon transcribe job Visit the [Transcribe console](https://console.aws.amazon.com/transcribe/home), and make a new job. Give it a name and then supply the URI of the object on S3, and leave the rest of the settings as their defaults. ## Step four: see your transcribed audio The text is displayed on the screen ready for you to copy and paste, or you can download a json file complete with timestamps if you need it. Getting the transcription is just the start, of course – we need to analyse the meaning behind the words, annotate, identify take-aways and share the outcomes with the design team and product squad – but this shortcut definitely made my life easier this week. You can see more of our work on Instagram [@ubuntudesigners](https://www.instagram.com/ubuntudesigners/?hl=en), follow us on Twitter [@ubuntudesigners](https://twitter.com/ubuntudesigners?lang=en) – and don’t forget to [check open positions](https://boards.greenhouse.io/canonical) if you’d like to join our team. [Get in touch Interested in running Ubuntu in your organization?](https://ubuntu.com/about/contact-us/form) ## Sign up for our newsletter Get the latest Canonical news and updates in your inbox. Work email: \*I agree to receive information about Canonical's products and services. By submitting this form, I confirm that I have read and agree to [Canonical's Privacy Policy](https://canonical.com/legal/dataprivacy). Sign up ## Share on --- ## Related posts [### Challenges designers face in open source (and how to fix them)](https://canonical.com/blog/challenges-designers-face-in-open-source-and-how-to-fix-them) Open source powers up to 90% of modern software, yet many projects lack usability. Canonical’s Design team surveyed 115 cross-functional professionals to uncover the 4 core... [Kola Ojoodide](https://canonical.com/blog/author/kola-ojoodide) 26 June 2026 [### Why web engineering is great](https://canonical.com/blog/why-web-engineering-is-great) Hi, I’m Johann! I’m an engineering manager in Canonical’s web team. For the larger part of my 15 years of work experience as engineer, I’ve been working in web development.... [Johann Wolf](https://canonical.com/blog/author/johannwolf) 27 April 2026 [### 70% of IT teams spend more than 6 hours per week on security patching – new IDC research](https://canonical.com/blog/70-of-it-teams-spend-more-than-6-hours-per-week-on-security-patching-new-idc-research) Open source software is a popular tool for businesses for many reasons, but this adoption has introduced new challenges in maintaining their open source software supply chain.... [Canonical](https://canonical.com/blog/author/canonical) 26 March 2025 [### Canonical announces Ubuntu Security Research Alliance Program](https://canonical.com/blog/canonical-announces-ubuntu-security-research-alliance-program) Today, Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu, announced its new Ubuntu Security Research Alliance Program, a free partnership between Canonical and open source vulnerability... [Canonical](https://canonical.com/blog/author/canonical) 4 December 2024