the secrets of conducting successful ethnography research online

A Presenta*on from the NewMR Ethnography & Market Research Event -‐ May 25, 2011

Event sponsored by Square Holes All copyright owned by The Future Place and the presenters of the material For more informaFon about Square Holes hGp://www.squareholes.com/

For more informaFon about NewMR events visit newmr.org

The Secrets of How to Gather Ethnographic Data from Online Surveys Jon Puleston, GMI

WWW.GMI-MR.COM | ONLINE ETHNOGRAPHY | 2 Speaker Jon Puleston, GMI Interactive, UK

NewMR Ethnography, May 25, 2011

Ethnographic

The secrets of how to gather

Tips and hints for gathering ethnographic style data from online surveys

data from online surveys



Background •  GMI interactive team specialise in the design &

development of interactive surveys for clients around the world

•  Also conducted extensive research into how to stimulate respondents to give more effective feedback by making surveys more engaging »  Conducted over 100 research experiments exploring this area »  3 papers available on this topic



This is a summary of our experiences of gathering ethnographic data within an online survey environment



In a nutshell Its bloody difficult

•  Getting people to open up and talk about themselves in an online survey is not easy

•  Many respondents are reticent about typing open

ended responses



What lessons have we learnt?



Making it feel Important •  Asking people to put some effort into a piece of research, it

helps if you can show you have put an effort into its design too



Importance of establishing a rapport

Study Aristotle NLP A qual researcher in action: Episode 4 Season 4 Madmen



Techniques for establish rapport

•  Be candid and open as possible about your objectives for the research

•  Communicate to respondents on their level



A good example

Get is right and can result in up to 3x the volume of feedback



Another great example from InSites Consulting



Warming them up

Recommended reading

Don’t jump straight in with intimate questions



Use opening questions that are easy to answer and encourage Narcissism & candidness!

•  How would your friends describe you in one sentence?

•  Use 3 words to describe your dress senses

•  Name some guilty pleasures »  Films, TV programmes, food

•  Set the tone to be fun an informal

Can gear these toward topic under consideration



The success of using projection techniques...

•  Imagine you are being interviewed by a magazine...

Word count up from 360 to 470! Encourages more sound bite style responses



Guarded Reticence

Opened flood gates

What you have to focus on is getting respondents over the hill

Once people have decided it is ok and fun the quality of feedback enters a different dimension – not just in volume terms but more candid, sound bity



The role and importance of imagery •  To help stimulate the imagination and trigger the memory

Important to tailor to the target audience



The moment you start boring them you have lost them!

0 5

10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Q6 Q9 Q10 Q13 Q4 Q16 Q23 Q24 Q25 Q28 Q30

50% average reduction in word count for the same question asked at start v end of 15 minute study



Showing examples of what other people have written

•  Help set expectations establish benchmark on how much you expect them to write

•  Guide people who are not sure what they should say

•  Reassure respondents that not expecting perfect language

Can double to volume of feedback



Employing word counters

Encourages more feedback



Breaking up with traditional questions and using these as thought leaders...

•  Which of these things have you done in the last week »  Please explain more about this activity...

•  Which of these words would you use to describe how you feel about this topic »  How would you summarise your feelings...

•  What was the best and what was the worst... »  Explain why



Employing game play techniques •  2 minute challenges •  Word restriction rules



Piloting •  More than most other types of research, when you are

trying to gather ethnographic style data piloting is really valuable

•  Subtle differences to wording of questions can make a big impact on word count

•  Improvements gains are not marginal they can be dramatic

e.g. Moved from 100 words to over 400 words through a series of micro sample pilots



File uploading •  Highly sensitive to approach

»  5% to 50% compliance range! •  Need to teach them how •  To over come barriers need to explain how pictures will be used



How to encourage people to upload photos...



Remote Video interviewing

•  Technology available to do this within an online survey »  cannot honestly say we had much

of a response when we have experimented with using to gather Ethnographic style feedback

»  Almost impossible to do with a human on the other end to guide the process

•  That said, using remote video techniques with human interviewers I know to be an extremely powerful Ethnographic research technique »  More candid feedback than when a

person enters a home



On the horizon

•  Points based feedback »  Incentivised by word count » Spot prizes for good responses

•  Viral research approaches



Final thought: Gathering quality ethnographic artefacts from respondents really boils down to how you ask the questions



Ray Poynter The Future Place

Jon Puleston GMI Interactive

Q & A

WWW.GMI-MR.COM | USING IMAGES IN ONLINE SURVEYS | 29 Speaker Jon Puleston, GMI Interactive, UK


More info: [email protected] http://question-science.blogspot.com/

A Presenta*on from the NewMR Ethnography & Market Research Event -‐ May 25, 2011

Event sponsored by Square Holes All copyright owned by The Future Place and the presenters of the material For more informaFon about Square Holes hGp://www.squareholes.com/

For more informaFon about NewMR events visit newmr.org

The Secrets of How to Gather Ethnographic Data from Online Surveys Jon Puleston, GMI

the secrets of conducting successful ethnography research online

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