IdeaDistiller-AI Support for Idea Synthesis in Concept Mapping: Algorithm Development and Validation Study.

Background: Concept mapping (CM) is a widely used mixed method research approach for structuring and visualizing complex ideas across various fields, such as the health sciences. A critical bottleneck in the CM process is the idea synthesis phase, which remains labor-intensive, subjective, and consequently challenging to scale for large datasets. Objective: In this study, we propose IdeaDistiller, a semiautomated solution based on semantic clustering to optimize the idea synthesis step while maintaining methodological rigor through a human-in-the-loop approach. Methods: Using 9 health care-related datasets in English and Swedish, we systematically evaluated different embedding models, dimensionality reduction techniques, and clustering algorithms to identify robust and reproducible parameter settings for the proposed approach. IdeaDistiller clusters participant-generated ideas based on semantic similarity to identify similar ideas with different wording, suggests representative and unique ideas per cluster, and provides coherence scores and sorted outputs to aid manual validation. Results: Our findings suggest that IdeaDistiller may substantially reduce the manual effort involved in idea synthesis while preserving quality and transparency. However, human expertise remains indispensable for validating and refining cluster outputs. Conclusions: Integrating semiautomated methods into the CM workflow offers significant potential for improving the efficiency, scalability, and rigor of the CM process. Building on our work will enable the exploration of larger multilingual datasets and integration into future CM studies.