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I’ve blogged a bit before about the importance of the participant experience in online communities, but what about the client experience?  A great post over at the Yellow Submarine blog on “The use of pictures in qualitative research” got me thinking again about how important the experience of the client is in qualitative research (or really any type of research).  After all, what use is research unless it causes people to think or act in some meaningful way as a result, and a great way to get them to do that is to put the data in the most compelling/accessible format possible.

The question, of course, is how exactly do you go about making that experience compelling?  How do you engage your direct clients (and their stakeholders) around your research?  Here are a few ideas (among many) to consider:

• “Bite Size” Findings – Most people just don’t have the time to read through exhaustive research reports.  They need the here and now, as quickly as possible.  With the popularity of Twitter, why not think about the “140 character insight.”  Challenge yourself to distill the finding or recommendation into 140 characters or less…
• Reconsider the Delivery Mechanism – Speaking of Twitter, why not consider ways to continually deliver these insights through a “Twitter-like” mechanism.  We use a really useful application called “Co-op” here at PluggedIN to stay connected with each other.  Why not try something like that for findings?
• Building Community Around Community – OK, so I’ll admit that most people are already too busy to participate in a separate community, but to what extent can you get them to engage around the community by using many of the same strategies used to build a vibrant customer community?  Why not try games, friendly competitive activities, sweepstakes, awards, individual recognition, etc… to engage stakeholders and encourage them to interact with research findings in a meaningful way?

These are just a few strategies, but there are obviously many more…  Feel free to share any ways that have worked for you in the comments to this post.

– Matt

I know I’m not the first (or the last) to address this topic, but there are some very interesting developments in the qualitative research world that we are seeing. They seem to fit nicely into one of two groups – those that involve the qualitative tools/methodologies and how we use them, and those that involve the delivery of qualitative insights and reporting. This post refers just to the methodologies/tools and our roles as moderators. We’ll address delivery and reporting trends in Part two of this post. Here is a list of top trends that we see regarding qualitative methodologies:

Better Access

Research communities and other longitudinal methods now give us the ability to develop continuous or extended relationships with respondents that truly allows us to explore issues over time. No longer do we have to rely solely on a few hours or a few days with a set of people. Time is on our side!

Research from Multiple Angles

With this extended relationship also comes the time and tools to approach research objectives from multiple angles. We now can use a variety of tools (e.g., discussions, photos exercises, blog/diary creation, polls) to explore issues with our audience. We need to be more multifaceted than ever and think about mixing it up rather than pointing and shooting the same old way.

Complimentary Research

As the qualitative researcher tool belt is expanding, there will be even more opportunities to mix in online and offline qualitative for our clients. Using technology in-between face-to-face efforts to help continue conversations will only improve our value in the marketplace. Also, unique research designs that use a combination of techniques (e.g., in-person ideation + online customer advisory board + sub panel of early adopters) to provide clients with holistic solutions for problems will be very successful.

Equal Exchange of Ideas

We are now embracing a culture of “losing control” and giving respondents tools to express themselves apart from the questions we ask as researchers. Whether through controlled environments or research in existing public communities, qualitative research especially will be about engaging people with less directed Q&A sessions and more passive listening opportunities.

New Ways of Expression

We’ve touched on this in previous posts, but with technology comes new ways of expressing ourselves. The future of online qualitative will be measured not just by its ability to replicate traditional methods, but by the extent to which we can leverage technology to allow individuals the ability to communicate in ways they could never do in-person. There are potentially many powerful ways for people to represent their feelings or perceptions in a virtual, non-verbal manner, and the future of online research revolves around the ability to find unique ways to allow individuals to represent their thoughts. For example, instead of relating words or images with a particular brand, consumers could potentially build characters that represent brands (with hair color, outfit choice, personality traits, and lifestyle factors). This virtual representation can help researchers uncover deep underlying associations with a brand in a way that a conventional Q & A session (either online or offline) could not replicate.

New Roles as Moderators

We blogged the other week about how moderating online communities is different from other methodologies, and we see the role of moderators as a whole evolving over time as well. Finding new ways to open up and engage members in online settings will be even more important. This can be done through creating interesting profiles, embedding video-type discussions (recording ourselves asking questions), thinking up creative role playing and game-like research activities, and other engaging/fun solutions.  All of these methods will be crucial to keeping members actively involved and excited in continuous research methods.

I was talking with an old colleague yesterday and she asked me how moderation in a research community is different than traditional focus groups or other online qualitative tools (e.g. bulletin board groups, chat groups). As I was thinking about my answer, I realized there are quite a few differences:

Depth through variety

As a whole, communities are far less regimented (or at least should be) than typical qualitative methods. With discussions especially, you want to minimize the layers of questions and think about topics as a whole. That’s not to say you can’t go deep. There are ways to achieve this depth through a series of related community activities (e.g short polls, discussions, sentence completion activity), but the way you approach this depth is likely from multiple activities and not through one post alone.

Mix it up

Communities are typically long term in nature, so mixing up the types of activities you post is very helpful for users, and even for us moderators!  It keeps things interesting and less monotonous which is very important in these ongoing research communities where you want keep people engaged over time.

Open up

One of the great things about communities is that they allow people to share their real identity through profile pages, photos, blogs and other tools. As a moderator, it is crucial that we use these same tools to show the community who we are and what is going on in our own life. The better you are able to do this as a researcher, the more the community in turn will open up about themselves and contribute.

Let go

One of the hardest things for me to learn initially was the idea of letting go of control of the conversation. As moderators we want to “ask, ask, ask,” but in communities it is really important to listen to the community and circle back on topics of interest. If there is a particularly interesting comment or user generated discussion, incorporating it into a future activity (and acknowledging the member that posted) reinforces the fact that you are listening to what the members are saying. Also, this approach is much more effective for “probes” and follow-up questions. Creating a new discussion and engaging the community as a whole is oftentimes more effective than trying to follow up inline with individual members, plus it opens up the opportunity to hear several opinions rather than one individual opinion.

Build community & fun

Equally as important as designing compelling research activities is the task of building community (which could be another post altogether). Responding to, acknowledging, and engaging members is crucial to establishing a sense of community as well. Also, proactively posting “community building activities” is important. These can be simple blog posts about a new game you found online, a gallery of funny Youtube videos people can contribute to, ridiculous celebrity death match surveys or even a book review of the month. Mixing in the fun goes a long way.

Know the outside

No matter how advanced your community platform is, it cannot possibly include every feature known to man. That’s why it is important to have a list of sites and tools that you can link to for compelling content. Whether it is a collage tool, virtual avatar creator, or card sorting tool – there are a ton of clever and insightful tools out there that are only a link away. These items also break up the monotony for users as well and keep things interesting inside your community.

Time is relative

For our continuous communities, we try to keep the weekly participation requirement to about 15 minutes per week. However, for shorter term communities, participation can go as high as 30 minutes, depending on the duration of the project. This is not a hard/fast rule, but generally speaking the longer the initiative, the lower the regular participation requirement you want to place on your members.

Be regular & spontaneous

Inevitably, whatever the mix of activities you choose to launch, launching these at fairly regular intervals helps set the expectations of members that new content is released at a specific time. This will get them in the habit of checking in on a regular basis. Also, mixing in the spontaneous along the way let’s them know that community activity has a sporadic nature as well. This will hopefully encourage members to check in throughout the week and months when they get a free minute. Breaking news and current events are a great source for this more “spontaneous” activity.