Module 1 Section 1 Slides with Transcript - Insight Platforms

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Hello everyone and welcome to this first training session all about how to win better online and mobile qualitative work.

I hope that afterwards, you will be able to win more valuable digital qualitative projects. I mean valuable not just in terms of company profit, but also in terms of professional fulfilment.

All the qualitative researchers that I’ve ever met, are genuinely fascinated by the human condition and by doing inspiring work with integrity. We all want to get a more profound understanding of people through the work we do.

In this webinar, I’ve collated strategic principles, tactical guidelines, thorough tech reviews and useful downloads, based on many years of working in this space.

This first module is about how to win better projects: ‘Better’, in terms of more profitable, less risky and ultimately more insightful.

Future modules will cover the art and craft of project design and planning and finally running projects.


I’ve learned a lot over 13 years in this space: both as a practitioner and trainer of online and mobile qualitative research.

I remember the first mobile study I ran in 2007, which was to evaluate the Innocent Smoothie ‘village fete’ brand experience event.

Back then we had to manually send SMS messages to participants and it took hours to process just one short video! We had to adapt non-research blogging software that was painfully hard to programme.

It was a laborious task – a million miles away from the highly automated research technology available today.

I was struck by two things. Firstly, how we got so much more detail and colour than they did in the face to face focus groups that they ran at the event. And secondly – how powerful one of the outputs was. We received a video from an attendee on the task to summarise the spirit of the event; it was of a 5 year old girl, dressed as a fairy, dancing with her parents.

That video was not only insightful. But it gave the client a visual asset with great power. It got colleagues client-side talking about the research more and understanding the essence of its appeal – which was rooted in the innocence of family. The power of the mobile and online qual research was not just in our


message, it was in the medium through which it was conveyed.

The true power in online and mobile research is when you use it to do things that you can’t in face to face research. Since that project, I’ve learned a lot – sometimes the hard way – and I’ve condensed all that into this training series.


In this module, I will cover 1 - how to choose the right method - This includes the key factors to consider when selecting the four most popular methods 2 – how to choose the right technology - This covers some of the lead providers, and how to prioritise what really matters 3 - How to get the cost and proposal right - This includes a formula for estimating consultancy time accurately - And some tips on how to reduce the risk in online projects through your terms and

conditions


There are four main messages I am trying to land in this training


The real potential in online methods is when you use it to get insights that you can’t face to face. Try not to see it as simply replicating traditional face to face methods like focus groups, online. Realise that online does not rely so much on reported behaviour and can get into people’s real worlds. Go beyond Q&A formats to set real world tasks and get vivid multimedia feedback.


In this training, I will be covering off real-time methods like live webcam and text groups. Clients are switching to these methods from offline. However, the real value for you and your clients is in embracing text and mobile methods which are asynchronous – in other words they are not in real-time – they run across a few days. But this takes more time, and generates a lot of content to analyse. Which takes more time to make sense of which requires charging more consultancy fee than you would if for live online focus groups. In the process you will create more value for clients and your business.

I really hope that this course gives you the ammunition and confidence to upsell these more sophisticated, valuable types of asynchronous online and mobile qual projects (as well as giving you what you need to meet the demand for real-time online group discussions.


You don’t need a vice to crack a nut.

There are many technology providers to choose from. Some are more expensive than others.

Evaluate them through three lenses – the inputs you need / what you have to do with the outputs / and what help you need managing the project

It’s easy to choose a familiar provider based on habit or recommendation. But you should make sure you’re not paying for features you don’t need. And not missing out on features that could help win you win more projects.

This training should not only make you aware of leading platforms to consider but also help you prioritise which features are really worth paying for.


To educate clients to be more ambitious in how they use online, so that they don’t just try and replicate traditional methods with real-time webcam and live text chat. – we have to confront their misconceptions

Namely that it is cheaper, quicker and more superficial – it really isn’t when it’s done well. It’s vital to get these advantages across and not succumb to the anti-online narratives that many qual researchers promote


To inspire clients with online and mobile qual, you can’t ignore the most common criticism. Which is that you lose a lot when can’t see ‘the whites of participants’ eyes’. The worry is that by losing non-verbal levels of communication, you understand them less.

I think it’s important to acknowledge as true. However, like every choice, there’s a trade-off. While you may miss out on body language, the loss should be contextualised by the many advantages that you gain when you get the most out of online and mobile technology.


On balance, even if you can’t see the whites of their eyes, I believe you get see their lives in full technicolor. The net effect of this is that you get richer insights and so can be more impactful for clients.

Mobile feedback - gives you visual access into people’s real lives – on their terms.

People are often more willing and able to share more personal and emotionally charged things about themselves, when they feedback in private, rather than in an artificial viewing facility. By removing the awkwardness of being surrounded by strangers and intensely observed – you enhance your chances that they reveal more about themselves.

The visual content they share in natural contexts, brings Insights to life far more vividly than any text based verbatim, can ever.


I have found that online methods – when used properly – go deeper than face to face. The fact is you have more opportunity to ask more questions, to probe more of their answers and ultimately get more feedback from them. So in trying to upsell a more labour intensive process you have to charge more. It’s important to get across the fact that asynchronous online, will generate a lot more feedback, compared to a traditional focus group, in which only one person can speak at any one time. The extra volume of feedback plus all the video and visual content they create, results in an embarrassment of riches - which is both a gift and a curse. You have to design studies efficiently and use the right technology the right way, to avoid being overwhelmed. And you have to charge enough to cover the time it takes. In this module we look more at the role of technology in supporting this. In later modules we go into the design and planning and execution of projects.


Also online defends against the criticisms facing traditional qual.

In recent years, traditional methods have come under fire. Psychology studies suggest what people say is highly influenced by the context of being in an artificial viewing facility and having other participants and a researcher in the room. And even private responses when done in a group are not really private. Humans are intrinsically social and can’t help but be influenced by the presence of others. Online and mobile methods get into people’s real lives, they can answer in the natural context of a given behaviour as it unfolds so it’s less reliant on fallible memory. I believe this means they should be central to any progressive consultancies’ approach to qualitative research. Clients need reminding of all these advantages.


To conclude this introduction, the problem is that people often look at the future through lens of the past.

So they assume that the role for online technology is to replicate face to face groups.

In your proposal you have to charge and justify a premium and invest in the tech necessary to do a great job.


Now Let’s look at how to choose the right method. This covers four the key methods.


There’s many tools and methods associated with online and mobile. And to make things more complicated they overlap somewhat. Based on where the market is, I’m pulling apart four main types in this research. First of all there’s ‘real-time’ online methods which tend to mimic traditional face to face groups (in that they’re live conversations) – that could be: text chat only in which people type answer to your question CLICK Or webcam discussions – which can be depths or groups. Then there’s Asynchronous – in other words ‘not live or in real-time’ – but spread across a few days. You can split Asynchronous – into text - which is like an online forum or message board discussion and mobile asynchronous where you’re gathering more video and imagery from people but you can also get text via mobile too – it’s important to realise that a single project could in theory include all of these methods, and that some providers offer all or some of them. I’m splitting them out here because each has its own benefits and drawbacks so it makes sense to pull them apart as we go through them.


There’s also what is sometimes called ‘online communities’ or ‘MROCs’ ‘market research online community’ which are longer term – running over weeks or months and bigger in scale (over one hundred people). So they might run continuously and sometimes include quant surveys too. For online communities you need specialist platforms which help you communicate and track participation at scale. This training is mostly focused on smaller, ad hoc briefs (which could have be answered with face to face methods). So the kind of classic brief which would be turned around in 4-6 weeks. There’s also an area worth noting around managing, editing, and analysing large volumes of video content. I’ll touch on these too


You hear many different ways of describing online methods. Any many clients ask for one thing which might mean something else to another.

Often, clients assume that ‘online qual’ is just traditional, face to face focus in Realtime via online webcams. And they fail to consider the more insightful asynchronous and mobile methods.

One client may call it ‘Online communities’ another ‘online qual or ‘forums’, ‘bulletin boards’ or ‘online groups’

Similarly they may ask for online diaries or blogs or online depths.

It’s important to make sure you and they know which type of qual you’re talking about. Try to evaluate their openness to / awareness of asynchronous methods.


Let’s start with real time text. I’ll go over a typical study design / the benefits / drawbacks, and a give a quick review of the tech options before going into how to decide on which is best. A typical real time text project is a bit like a WhatsApp group text conversation in which everyone is answering at once. So it’s dynamic but you can also feel slightly out of synch with others and lose the trail of discussion. Sizes vary from 6-12 people, it follows a live Q& format


So it’s like a real-time focus group – except you’re limited by how much people can type and you don’t see their faces

Most platforms let you share stimulus.


The core benefit is speed. You get instant transcripts and the sessions tend to be quicker. It’s also lower risk as it requires less internet bandwidth. Compared to other online methods, the technology less expensive and there’s less room for error. And in general you get more interaction than in asynchronous and webcam based real-time qual. Anonymity also encourages people to make more emotional disclosures than in a group webcam setting However, It relies on typing speed which is often slower than speech. And so can feel rushed and answers are stunted. There can be time lags between your questions, and their answers. And there’s less opportunity to probe because of the pace you’re trying to work at


So real-time text tends to be most valuable when you are under time or budgetary pressure and don’t have enough of either, do a realtime webcam group. Or if the audience isn’t comfortable talking via webcam or can’t access them easily


Now let’s look at real time webcam discussions - They tend to be 4 – 6 people but can be more. They usually last 60-90mins. Again they follow the typical Q&A format. You can get Stimulus feedback. Platforms vary in the types of feedback you can get and what you can do with it. As I’ll explain more in the next section.


I’m sure most of you will have done a group Zoom, Skype or Google Hangout call. So you can imagine what it’s like if you not done it in a research context.

Of course you can use non-research technologies but the specialist platforms have more bespoke features – although can be more expensive.


As with any multi-person video call, it’s sometimes tricky to avoid talking over each others. But you can still communicate. In general, it’s quicker than asynchronous methods because you generate less content to analyse, And ultimately it’s the most obvious replacement for face to face groups. You get to see participants faces and it’s easier to explain complex stimulus. So the disadvantages are that it’s a bit stilted – people can be awkward and you have the logistical stress of hoping everyone turns up and has no technical issues.


So real-time webcam studies are ideal when you don’t have the time or budget for asynchronous studies (which are lower stress, and more measured and in depth). It can be useful if you have to talk through complex stimulus as you can respond more naturally to people’s questions. It’s also good when clients want to see people’s gut reactions to things. Of course if clients insist on it and don’t want to do anything else, you’re going to need to do it!


Many researchers do use generic webcam platforms like Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts or MS Team - which are less expensive or even free.

The trade off is ultimately about control and reassurance. With generic tools you don’t have features which make it easier to manage participants, get nuanced feedback on stimulus and to manage the video content (for example with clipping, saving, sharing and analysing collaboratively). You don’t get the support or security features.

With bespoke research tools. You get more control. But it’s ultimately more expensive. So you gave to decide if it’s worth the premium based on your clients appetite and budget. I’m going to focus on paid tools more in this training.


Now onto asynchronous discussions which run across a few days.

They tend to be 16-32 people – sometimes it does go higher, but you can drown in the content.

They can be text or based on video and images feedback from mobiles.

Different platforms have different tools – as I’m going to go into later in the tech section.


To help you visualise this in case you’re not familiar – different platforms have different features. Broadly they’re similar in that you can ask questions and get text feedback (as a group or in private). Or you can get text or multi media feedback via mobile. You can use tools for things like collages, ranking features, doing polls. And there’s often management tools so you can schedule questions, chase people up automatically and track participation.


The main benefits over real-time face to face and real-time online methods are: You get more depth (because you get more detailed, considered feedback and you can probe and ask more) You get more context (because you can get feedback by mobile in real world settings) Purity (because you can get private responses without any influence from others) And it’s easier to collaborate with client or agency teams as you go (because of instant transcripts / it’s easier for them to fit it in around busy schedules).


So if the budget was there, and we had lots of detailed questions, I’d personally always want to do asynchronous online and mobile unless there was a pressure for 24hr turn around or the client insisted against it. Also If the study required lots and lots of mobile video feedback then I’d take a mobile approach which is the next method we’ll look at.


Most asynchronous online qual platforms are not really designed for managing lots and lots of mobile video. They struggle to compress big high definition files and it’s not so easy to manage the video content you get back. So here, I’ve pulled out ‘asynch’ mobile as a distinct category. Asynchronous mobile studies can be similar in size to asynchronous text-led one – although tend to work best with less people and less questions. It’s harder to see the screen and input detailed text feedback than in PC studies So it tends to be less about getting detailed written answers or feedback to stimulus. And more about getting in the moment


Here’s an example of one of the few mobile-first platforms. Which is primarily designed around getting mobile video. But it can also do mobile text, as well as screen recordings with audio. It’s far easier to manage mobile video content and you can tag it and edit clips within the platform. More on that later.


Mobile gives you richer colour because you get more video and visual content more easily

And critically it gives you more Contextually sensitive feedback. The rise of design thinking has made ethnographic research more popular in recent years which mobile qual plays into. The practice of mobile ethnography as it’s sometimes called is in growing demand. But takes time / you can’t ask such detailed questions / and it’s harder to show stimulus – which isn’t really its purpose


Mobile led studies are ideal when clients have the budget and time for more media rich media outputs, and they buy into design thinking and the ethnographic ethos that underpins it.


So how do you choose the right method?


Here’s 9 considerations to run through in order to work out which method is right for the brief.

1. have you got the budget to do asynchronous and mobile? 2. Is the stimulus so demanding you need real-time webcam to explain it? 3. Are you so short for time you have to default to real-time methods? 4. Is getting in the moment feedback so critical it has to be mobile led? 5. Similarly - does the client want lots of mobile video outputs? 6. Is the client concerned about group effects and wants the purity of private

responses? 7. Or is it vital to get detailed / nuanced feedback on stimulus? In which case

asynchronous gives you the depth. 8. Is it important to collaborate with others on the analysis? 9. Is it a sensitive topic that benefits from private, remote feedback?


For example, you might have a small budget on a fast turnaround piece of creative development. / The client wants the stimulus to be carefully explained with scripts read out. The client wants it to be as close to face to face as possible and is not bothered about group influence – since they’re used to doing groups.

Once you go through these considerations, it’s clear that you should do real time webcam. Client pressure Speed, cost and stimulus explanation are the critical factors


In this example there’s more time and money. You need to understand the customer journey in context and have good video outputs, so you need some mobile It’s a sensitive topic so you want it to be in remote and in private online rather than webcam based But you also have to co-analyse with the design time, so you want to have instant transcripts they can see and comment on each day And you have to get detailed feedback on concepts – so you want the depth of asynchronous text too So the priorities are: is feedback in context, collaborating over outputs and encouraging openness by keeping it remote. This points towards an asynchronous solution with some mobile.


Overall, asynchronous methods are deeper, more colourful, and purer. But they’re slower and more expensive. Whereas real-time methods are faster, inspire more interaction and are less expensive. But also relatively lighter and less colourful.


In conclusion – if it has to be fast and lower cost (or if the client insists on it) go with real-time webcam).

But If you have the luxury of a bit more time and budget –and you can upsell asynchronous discussion and mobile – then you should,

You can create more value for yourself and your client

Documents

Module 1 Section 1 Slides with Transcript - Insight Platforms