So, this could be considered a lazy blog post - a blog post about another blog post. And, this other blog post is about other posts and presentations on usability, so this could be considered extremely lazy on my part.
However, click here for the Useful Usability blog and get links to 5 Radical Ideas From Usability Presentations. There is stuff in here for UX professionals, iPhone developers and tips on presenting research findings. All good stuff.Share it this post around and let us know what radical ideas you have for presenting usability research.
Here is a quick link to the first presentation covered:
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Power of Mobile Market Research
As advertising to the public via mobile phones becomes more widespread, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for other marketing activities – including market research. Market research will need to keep pace with location-based marketing services like FourSquare, wantANDfound, Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, Placecast and many others. Emerging as the latest medium for reaching consumers, how can mobile research technologies be utilized to gain deeper and richer insights into behavior and drive innovation? Think about it, what if customers could give feedback anytime, anywhere to improve products and services – right when the issue happens or the idea arises!
A relatively new tool we have come across is QualAnywhere from 20/20 Research, Inc. QualAnywhere allows you to build panels or do one-off recruiting and then interact with respondent via their mobile phone for surveys or qualitative chat. A few examples 20/20 Research gives as ways to utilize this methodology includes:
• Conducting studies about eating habits DURING the lunch hour
• Conducting studies on shopping WHILE participants are likely to be at the grocery store
Interacting with respondents at the POD (Point-Of-Decision) is a rarity, but when available adds to the research validity and actionability. How do you conduct research at the POD? I would love to hear about it and how it helped your research.
A relatively new tool we have come across is QualAnywhere from 20/20 Research, Inc. QualAnywhere allows you to build panels or do one-off recruiting and then interact with respondent via their mobile phone for surveys or qualitative chat. A few examples 20/20 Research gives as ways to utilize this methodology includes:
• Conducting studies about eating habits DURING the lunch hour
• Conducting studies on shopping WHILE participants are likely to be at the grocery store
Interacting with respondents at the POD (Point-Of-Decision) is a rarity, but when available adds to the research validity and actionability. How do you conduct research at the POD? I would love to hear about it and how it helped your research.
Friday, June 25, 2010
The Power Of Doing Nothing
It is time for some Sentient employees to take off! Don't worry they will be back. We have Julie reaching her 3+ year mark and Kristen is in year 4. At Sentient we provide a little extra time off (you must take 2 weeks without email or contacting the office) and $5,000 travel allowance after 3 years and then every 3 years after that. The only catch is that we get to keep their computer and they can't call in to the office or contact us.
As we are fond of saying:
We all want to be proud of our work. But as important as our next project is, we know that it’s not our greatest gift or the greatest good that we can do. We have to work for a living, but it’s the living that defines us, not the work.
Well, this is part of that "living" thing we strive for. So, Julie will be gone part of this Summer and Kristen in the Fall. I could try to explain the benefits of this, but I think this video from TED says it very well. (Though we have not figured out how to take a year off just yet.)
As we are fond of saying:
We all want to be proud of our work. But as important as our next project is, we know that it’s not our greatest gift or the greatest good that we can do. We have to work for a living, but it’s the living that defines us, not the work.
Well, this is part of that "living" thing we strive for. So, Julie will be gone part of this Summer and Kristen in the Fall. I could try to explain the benefits of this, but I think this video from TED says it very well. (Though we have not figured out how to take a year off just yet.)
Friday, June 18, 2010
New ways to "research"
While it may not be “classic market research,” social media is bringing new ways for businesses to connect with customers for communication and feedback.
Interesting case in point – I was eating dinner at Tarka Indian Kitchen last night, and I saw that they had a well placed call to action to facilitate feedback from customers.
As my camera phone lacks the focus of an SLR camera, what you are looking at is a table tent that is found on each table. On one side is the wine list, and on the side we’re looking at is an invitation to “Share Your Experience” by reviewing them on Yelp. The final paragraph invites customers to submit their review immediately using Tarka’s free Wi-Fi connection.
With this open-ended approach Tarka is accomplishing several things:
A tool we use to gain a topical level of understanding when looking at focus group data and other unstructured text is wordle.net. With it we create word clouds where more frequently used words are displayed in larger font sizes and less frequently used words are displayed in smaller font sizes. We have used this successfully to showcase brand attributes, political campaigns and many other areas. This can help identify broad perceptions and opinions people may have. Below is the resulting word cloud when we feed Tarka’s Yelp reviews through it (note this is just a quick rundown – it has not been cleaned or edited of “nonsense” words such as conjunctions).
Interesting case in point – I was eating dinner at Tarka Indian Kitchen last night, and I saw that they had a well placed call to action to facilitate feedback from customers.
As my camera phone lacks the focus of an SLR camera, what you are looking at is a table tent that is found on each table. On one side is the wine list, and on the side we’re looking at is an invitation to “Share Your Experience” by reviewing them on Yelp. The final paragraph invites customers to submit their review immediately using Tarka’s free Wi-Fi connection.With this open-ended approach Tarka is accomplishing several things:
- Driving user-generated content about their restaurant by encouraging reviews
- Gathering unstructured feedback from customers
- Advertising that they have free Wi-Fi
- Gathering point-of-purchase feedback from those that login at their table using their smartphone or laptop
A tool we use to gain a topical level of understanding when looking at focus group data and other unstructured text is wordle.net. With it we create word clouds where more frequently used words are displayed in larger font sizes and less frequently used words are displayed in smaller font sizes. We have used this successfully to showcase brand attributes, political campaigns and many other areas. This can help identify broad perceptions and opinions people may have. Below is the resulting word cloud when we feed Tarka’s Yelp reviews through it (note this is just a quick rundown – it has not been cleaned or edited of “nonsense” words such as conjunctions).
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The Future Of Brand Research?
This is a quick post, since I missed mine last week! However, the subject is not a small one - brand research. As many of you know Sentient Services believes that the closer research can mimic actual brand interaction environments the better that research is. What do I mean here? Well, if most of a customer's brand experience is with a brand online, then it makes sense to conduct the research online (e.g., an online bulletin board focus group instead of an in-person focus group). Why?
They won't replace focus groups, back-room M&Ms and the nuances that only having a skilled moderator and 8 consumers in a room can bring (think collages, innovation sessions, white boarding website tasks and all sorts of other stuff that keeps us in business!). However, as researchers we have our eye on these new brand engagement platforms that live beyond the typical measured and researched "customer experience" CE scorecards. The customer experience is now everywhere, and discussed everywhere. Research needs to be the same. What are your thoughts?
- If a customer is telling others about a brand only online, then you want to hear and measure their within "native brand language"
- We love focus groups and love traveling and they are great for a myriad of subjects. However, if normal brand interaction is not part of a group, then it makes sense to measure brand interaction on an individual level and not within a group setting.
- If others are receiving peer-group brand feedback online and via social media, the research needs to use the same format. By researching within the format that future communications will take place one can get a better grasp of vernacular, content, and motives to use when making brand research recommendations for implementation.
They won't replace focus groups, back-room M&Ms and the nuances that only having a skilled moderator and 8 consumers in a room can bring (think collages, innovation sessions, white boarding website tasks and all sorts of other stuff that keeps us in business!). However, as researchers we have our eye on these new brand engagement platforms that live beyond the typical measured and researched "customer experience" CE scorecards. The customer experience is now everywhere, and discussed everywhere. Research needs to be the same. What are your thoughts?
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