Online Qual – not just a pretty face
When should you be using online qual tools?
I’ve spoken to a lot of researchers and agencies about online qual research this year, and while there are those that have quickly embraced it and reaping rewards, most remain interested but hesitant.
I regularly meet the same obstacles…
‘I’m interested but when it gets down to it, I know where I am with a traditional focus group’
or
‘We just can’t seem to find a project where we feel it’s relevant to use an online methodology’
For me, this boils down to a misdirected comparison between online qual and traditional workshops and focus groups. Essentially, online qual is a new paradigm, with it’s own unique set of benefits. It isn’t simply a cheaper or easier alternative to face-to-face research methods.
At Dub we believe there are a few of the key objectives that drive the choice to use an online methodology:
- Exposure and Reflection – do participants need to be exposed to stimulus before a live workshop, and do you want them to respond in a more thoughtful and creative manner?
- Creative Expression – do you want participants to be more creative in their expression and response to a task?
- Ethnography – are you looking to gather deeper, richer insights into the day-to-day lives of respondents, without a physical intrusion
- Collaboration – do you want to work ‘with’ respondents, and allow them to assume the role of designer, innovator, tester etc, and have a greater role in the development of new products and services beyond validation
If you’re nodding right now and/or saying yes to yourself, then our online tools and methodologies will deliver inspiration results to your research needs and creative challenges.
our new online research community platform that combines live, asynchronous and qual / quant market research tools. IdeaStream is designed to support communities of several hundred members anywhere in the world and has multi-lingual capability. IdeaStream has a range of task-based tools alongside those of a more open nature. Moderators and Community Managers (CMs) also benefit from the integration of our powerful moderation tool, Notes, which alows Moderators and CMs to collaborate more effectively on projects, manage community members within a single environment and share insight with clients and colleagues at the push of a button.
Knowing how much researchers love bulletin board focus groups (BBFGs), we've also released a new multimedia BBFG solution, aptly named BulletinBoard. It's been designed by researchers for researchers, and comes with all the features you'd expect such as text-based responses and moderation tools for deeper interrogation. It also offers some unexpected and powerful new features including multimedia sharing (pictures and video) and integrated polls and surveys. BulletinBoard also benefits from use of our Notes tool, so moderators can work collaboratively and document their thoughts and rate posts over time. This removes the need to scan everything again sequentially come the end of your project, and saves you valuable time, effort and, of course, money!