5 ways to adapt your qualitative UX Research to the “new online normal”
With ongoing uncertainty and many people required to work from home in recent months, we all know adapting to a “new normal” hasn’t been easy. The drastic changes in consumer and B2B behavior require us to pivot as market researchers. Winston Churchill once remarked, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” While this statement wasn’t related to a pandemic, he’s pointing out that being open to new ideas and embracing change is essential to adapting to the times.
While moderating in-person focus groups or in-depth interviews (IDI’s) may have to wait for a while, there are lots of ways to run qualitative research online with great results. In fact, given the massive shift to doing everything online, it’s even more important to gather detailed feedback from your target audience to learn about the challenges they are facing. With the latest virtual research tools, savvy startups and corporate giants can stay on top of changes in their customer’s habits and attitudes.
For those who are in the midst of rethinking methodologies or are new to online studies, I wanted to share some ideas that can move discussions forward and help set expectations with UX, design, marketing and product stakeholders. Here are five best practices that can guide your remote qualitative research process.
1. Let your objectives lead the way to the best online research methodology
Traditional surveys work great to uncover details about customer satisfaction percentages, ratings, preference numbers and other questions that need statistical validity. What surveys can’t tell you are the details behind those rankings or product choices. That’s why qualitative research is much better at helping teams learn the why and how of a topic. Gaining an in-depth understanding of why your customers like a mobile app or product and how do they use it requires asking open-ended questions.
If you’re looking for high-quality feedback, observational behavior and participant quotes that help your team move forward, online qualitative tools can help. The descriptions below can assist you in selecting what methodology will work best based on where you stand in a product development cycle.
Online Focus Groups — best for new product ideation and the benefit of a group of 7–10 people reacting to concepts and “what if” ideas.
Remote 1-on-1 Interviews — ideal for contextual feedback or usability testing of websites, software or mobile apps to see how people actually react to your interface and describe its ease of use.
Online Diary Studies — great for understanding in-home product usage or behaviors via written online diaries, images and/or short video clips from your target audience.
Bulletin Boards — perfect for including around 20 people and presenting ideas or iterative concepts over a week while letting participants react on their own time.
Mobile Ethnography — ideal for letting people video their own activities, opinions and thoughts and then downloading short 1–2 minute clips that help you understand what they are doing during specific situations like shopping, cleaning their home or putting on makeup.
2. Ask a few extra screener questions during recruitment
Our team recently ran some contextual IDI’s online with seniors 65 plus. In addition to the regular 10–15 screener questions documenting demographics, online habits, psychographics and past product usage, we also asked about digital savviness given the audience. Remember that independently recruited participants are worth the effort as friends and family are more likely to be nice and tell you what you want to hear.
For your screener questions, don’t just ask potential participants if they have Zoom or if they shop online. Get more details to really qualify participants so that you avoid time-wasting technical issues.
For example, phrase screener questions in the following way, “When was the last time you used GoToMeeting, Zoom, WebEx or FaceTime to participate in an online video chat?” A good follow up can be, “what device did you use for this — laptop, tablet or phone — and which version/model of the device was used?” These questions will help assess if the person is actually savvy or is just trying to participate in the research for the incentive.
When considering compensation for participant’s feedback and ideas, you can go with about 15% lower than traditional in-person incentives, but don’t skimp on this. Consumer incentives of $125 and B2B honorariums of around $200 per hour help to insure a high show rate.
3. Get comfortable with the technology and test the platforms
Just like we suggest for in-person research, setting aside about 10 days of planning time, writing a solid moderators guide and conducting a dry run test are all best practices. For in-person research, you may have prepared a focus group facility room with the right size whiteboards or tested a new interface in a few browser versions.
Plan for some technical glitches and set expectations with all team members. Recruiting a few standby participants is a good idea and we also suggest leaving 30 minutes of time in between each 1-on-1 interview or virtual focus group. This allows for any tech resets, video downloads and also gives the team time to adjust some questions.
For your moderator’s guide, allow a few minutes at the start to ask everyone — participants, colleagues and clients — if they can see and hear everything online. We’ve all experienced some glitches with online videocall platforms and allocating some time upfront will help insure a productive session.
If you have not used online qualitative research platforms such as iTracks, Vidlet, dScout, 20/20 and others, spend few days with their systems and ask for a tutorial. You’ll want to become familiar with audio, video, chat and other controls on the interface. The firms I’ve mentioned have great staff and will walk you through a detailed test run several days before a study.
4. Get your stakeholders excited about online qualitative research
While in-person research may be preferred by traditionalists, there are three great benefits that you can pitch to your team about virtual studies.
I. You can recruit participants from multiple geographic locations. This broadens your audience and enables for more diversity in your research. With a quality recruiting partner, you can invite people from all over the world, just the US or exclusively from one city.
II. Online saves time. Running in-person research with people in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago takes lots of logistical planning and travel time. With online methodologies, everyone can watch the research live on their laptops. For UX research, tools like GoToMeeting, Zoom and WebEx all work great. You can run 6–7 interviews a day and give mouse control to participants while clients or colleagues can observe from anywhere in the world.
III. Most people (like your boss) love to save money. Online research removes the line item costs for facility rentals and travel.
Senior staff should be excited about saving time and budget with a broader group of targeted participants. Running online studies is certainly much better than waiting until travel restrictions are lifted and the pandemic subsides.
5. Set expectations for results and reporting
Although gathering qualitative feedback may be a little faster online based on your methodology selection, give yourself and/or your research vendor time to develop an easy-to-read deliverable. After the final comments are collected, allow 5–7 days to develop the summary report. Remember that some of the folks who will read the report may not have seen any of the research, so provide some up front objectives and explain the scope of the work.
When you present the results, prioritize the “ah ha” findings in an executive summary and then get into the details. A successful research engagement should yield a handful of critical findings that can help multidisciplined teams make informed decisions.
Will you face any challenges?
Sure. Categories such as food and beverages are going to be tough online however we should all think creatively. If you have a hands-on type product that needs to be researched, think about sending packages to participants with specific directions. People can video themselves as they try a product you’ve sent, or they can wait until an online focus group to open an item.
“Changing often” as Churchill described isn’t easy, but it enables learning and new ways of approaching a problem. Be curious, try a different approach with online research, and get in touch if you need some help, as sharing experiences is energizing and moves us all forward.
Lon is the Founder & Principal UX Researcher at First Insights. You can contact him on social media @lontaylor or at www.FirstInsights.com
