“Oh, you’re not creating surveys are you?!”
I caught up with an old friend of mine recently. Over coffees, we inevitably got onto the topic of work – and how I was now running a market research company that specialised in quantitative research.
Turns out, he wasn’t a particular fan of my industry.
After making a few big purchases, he’d recently run the gamut of consumer response surveys and – to politely paraphrase – he thought the experience was ‘really, really bad’.
“The trouble with surveys is they're just a bit boring. They go on forever about things that aren't ever really of interest. At the end of the day, all you're doing is clicking on bunch of buttons for half an hour."
And, honestly, I couldn’t disagree with him.
The problem with quantitative research...
Look – I’m not calling out the people who wrote the surveys my friend encountered.
I’m sure they met their brief: they thought about collecting data in a responsible and unbiased way, and probably delivered a report that was useful for the client.
But what about the experience of the respondent?
My friend may be a sample of one, but I’ve had lots of similar conversations over the years. There clearly are many people who just don’t particularly enjoy taking part in surveys: the life-blood of the quantitative industry.
And I think that’s having a long-term impact on the data we are collecting, and – ultimately – our reputation as researchers with the wider public.
It’s one of the main reasons I started SketchBook – to start to try and solve some of these problems. To explore the valuable ground at the intersection of ‘research’ and ‘play’ – to see if we can deliver actionable insights for clients, while also creating an enjoyable experience for respondents.
As part of this process, I’ve developed a few soft ‘rules’ that I try to follow when creating research projects. Of course, the reality of client and project needs means I can’t always follow them – but I still find it useful to keep them in my head when designing research …
Three rules for creating better surveys (and other research as well)
1 - Bring more of ‘You’ into ‘User Research’
One thing that I’ve noticed in my profession is a desire to erase the researcher from the research process.
In a well-meaning attempt to ensure impartiality from projects, survey-makers have adopted a stand-offish tone and writing style when it comes to creating questionnaires.
However, I think this style can also feel incredibly alien and unfriendly to consumers.
There’s been plenty of research into AI/Chatbot space (such as this study from Wizu and another from Rival Tech) that points to how a more ‘conversational’ style of research leads to more robust responses and better engagement from individuals taking part.
For my part, I’ve had success introducing pictures of myself into the research (particularly in the intro) and using a more relaxed style and a first-person point of view when writing questions. When adopting these simple measures in a test project I ran a few years ago, I saw an increase in task comprehension, relevance, and enjoyment among participants.
We should always be careful with our wording as researchers, to make sure that we aren’t biasing answers. And, of course, context matters: an informal style doesn’t always work with the subject being explored.
But I also believe that we shouldn’t forget the power of being personal, friendly, and trying to build rapport when we’re trying to engage research participants in a task.
2 - Learn from the spaces where people love spending time
Something that I’ve been fascinated with for a long time is the gaming space – particularly exploring how researchers might harness some of the energy, creativity, and collaboration that people generate when playing games.
At the same time, a gamified experience helps to combat some of the ‘boring’ stereotypes of our industry.
There has been plenty written about gamification in market research already: there are some incredible researchers, such as Betty Adamou, who have spent a great deal of time writing and thinking about this space.
Brand Snap is our own little attempt to introduce a bit of gamification into the research experience. In these sessions, participants play against each other – attempting to create the best match of brands and different statements/ideas.
It’s a product that we’re really proud of at SketchBook – as it delivers improved engagement and data quality, while also providing a fun alternative to the more pedestrian grid question format.
3 - Embrace change but validate quality
In the dark days before SketchBook, I spent a great deal of time developing new technology products – and I’ve seen first-hand the huge opportunity that awaits those willing to experiment with these tools in the research space.
With that in mind, the SketchBook team are always on the lookout for new and exciting ways to fruitfully dig into consumers’ thoughts and opinions. We always keep a weather-eye out for emerging tools that might unlock different perspectives or behaviours – and create a smoother or more interesting research process as well.
However, that doesn’t mean we should jump head-first into developing new products without validating their effectiveness first.
Product development at SketchBook is a careful process – a sensitive balancing act of exciting exploration and continually checking that our new methodologies are delivering equivalent findings to more tried-and-tested (but perhaps more boring!) measurement tools.
Balancing novelty with quality can be a tight-rope – but I believe it’s an important line for research companies to walk as we strive to create better, more impactful, insights.
We're always exploring and developing
Hopefully this little blog has shed some light on what we’re trying to do at SketchBook.
By bringing a bit of fun and excitement back into the research process, we can hopefully start to shift the dial on how consumers think about our industry – and ensure that we’re continuing to deliver the insights our clients need!
If you want to hear a bit more about some of our recent thinking at SketchBook, we’d love to have a chat. Drop us a line – we can promise we’ll be anything but boring!