I am looking for a rigorous way to code and analyse visual data (e.g. photos of products) for insights. In specific from a phenomenological perspective.
we need more to answer correctly, however, I guess you need a self-made coding method... you might extract codes from positive design principle for example...
I don't normally think of phenomenology as involving either coding or data that is not directly derived from the experiences of the research participants themselves. Still, any of the major qualitative software programs will allow you to work with pdfs, including the ability to select portions of images and attach codes to them.
I agree with David that a phenomenological approach would not be compatible with a coding system extraneous to particpants' experience, so it would partly depend of the source of the images, and their context, purpose and reception. In advertising, creatives have been playing with multiple meanings of images ever since Barthes' "Mythologies" in the late 50s, and semiotic approaches moved way past coding by the 80s, with post-semiotics and critical perspectives like that of photographer/analyst Victor Burgin. The legendary 1980s Benson and Hedges "Silk Cut" cinema advert, which ran for 3 minutes without showing or mentioning the product, in the process indirectly citing whilst inverting the installation artist Christo Javacheff in erecting a curtain across a Scottish glen, is perhaps the sophisticated apotheosis of such playful polysemic efforts that both exit and create multiplicity. So the question is - what and why do you want to code?
You will certainly need a Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. I highly recommend Atlas.ti. It works beautifully on Mac.
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