A Round represents how you are learning at a particular moment within a Project.
Rounds allow research to evolve - without breaking continuity.
They are intentionally designed to support iteration, comparison, and change, while keeping insights connected at the Project level.
Rounds exist to support iteration
Within a Project, research rarely happens just once.
Teams iterate by:
trying different research methods
testing alternative designs or prototypes
adjusting questions as understanding improves
working with different participant segments
Rounds provide a clean way to represent these shifts.
Each Round captures a specific research approach at a given point in time.
A Round is not a container for insights
This is a crucial distinction.
In Lookback, Rounds do not own findings.
Instead:
Rounds describe how research was conducted
Projects hold what was learned
This design prevents insights from becoming siloed by method, timing, or iteration.
Qualitative understanding strengthens through comparison, not isolation.
Why findings are not separated by Round
Separating findings by Round would imply that learning resets every time a method changes.
That is rarely true in qualitative research.
Insights often:
recur across methods
deepen over time
contradict earlier assumptions
only become meaningful in hindsight
By keeping findings at the Project level, Lookback allows evidence to accumulate and remain comparable - even as research evolves.
Rounds make change explicit, without breaking context
Rounds are useful precisely because they make change visible.
They allow you to see:
which method was used
which prototype was tested
which participants were involved
when the research took place
All without disconnecting insights from the broader body of evidence.
Rounds provide context, not boundaries.
One Project, many Rounds
A single Project may include Rounds such as:
moderated interviews
unmoderated tasks
AI-moderated sessions
follow-up studies
stakeholder interviews
Each Round contributes perspective. None overwrite or invalidate what came before.
This reflects how real qualitative learning progresses.
How Rounds relate to Sessions
Within a Round:
multiple Sessions are conducted
each Session captures one interaction with a participant or stakeholder
Rounds group Sessions by approach, not by importance.
Sessions remain the source of raw evidence; Rounds describe the research context in which that evidence was gathered.
What Rounds are not
To avoid confusion:
A Round is not a study report
A Round is not an insight container
A Round is not a reset of learning
Rounds are a way to organize process, not to partition understanding.
Why this matters for research quality
By separating:
Projects (what you’re trying to understand)
Rounds (how you’re learning right now)
Sessions (what actually happened)
Lookback encourages:
cumulative insight
longitudinal understanding
evidence-based sense-making
This structure supports learning that compounds rather than fragments.
What to explore next
To complete the core structure:
Learn what a Session represents and what it contains
Understand what is recorded in a session and why
Explore how findings emerge from sessions over time