I’ve had some discussions recently with clients and researchers about in-person qualitative research versus qualitative conducted via webcams. One point I hear made is that online conversations don’t yield the same level of engagement, intimacy and spontaneity as face-to-face ones. While this is a fair point, it’s often overstated—the difference isn’t as great as some might think. And one factor that gets overlooked is that webcam research allows you to do things that are difficult or impossible to do in person. There’s a pretty long list of tasks that work well online, and no reason to list them all here. But here are three of my favorite things that are particularly easy with webcams.
Geography
Sometimes, when designing in-person qualitative, I’ll try to discourage clients from conducting the research in too many locations. Not only is this time-consuming and expensive, but, if your qualitative will be followed by quantitative, you can get your geographic dispersion easily and cost-effectively in your quant phase. However, sometimes clients truly need a large number of markets represented in the qualitative data—this is particularly common in shopper insights studies. In situations like this, the webcam can really be your friend. You can recruit from a national (or even global) sample, and can include participants from a large number of markets in your study time- and cost-efficiently. And remember—you don’t have to do all your qualitative online. I’ve frequently conducted studies in which we began with one or two in-person markets, and finished the study online with a broader geographic sample.
Aggregated Data
When collecting reactions to stimuli (such as package designs, advertisements or new product concepts), it’s often helpful to be able to create a visual representation of all of the participants’ reactions. Online research platforms make this particularly easy to do, as many contain markup tools that allow participants to record their responses directly on the stimulus, with the back-end software aggregating all responses into a single visual presentation – such as a heat map – in real time. Yes, you can do this sort of thing with in-person research as well, but it’s often a slow, painstaking process.
Hybrid Qual/Quant Research
Most online qualitative platforms have built into them some type of polling question function. This allows you to quickly send a quick, closed ended question to your participants and capture everybody’s quantified response in real time. As with aggregation, while you can do this in person, it’s a lot easier and faster online. And here’s an even more exciting qual/quant wrinkle: there are online tools that will allow you to construct an agile (one- or two-day), fully integrated approach that starts with a large, geographically dispersed quantitative sample and ends with on-the-spot qualitative groups or interviews selected right out of your quant sample. So, at the end of one or two days, you’ll have statistically reliable quantitative data leavened with qualitative insights executed at blinding speed — an integrated study providing higher order insights that can replace time- and money-intensive multiphase research. This approach lends itself to all manner of strategic and tactical tasks: positioning, brand communication, concept development and testing, even segmentation.
These are just some of the unique capabilities webcams provide. I haven’t mentioned a number of others such as bringing a whole new level of feasibility and realism to ethnographic research, rapid textual analysis, or the ability to move participants easily among group discussions, individual interviews and bulletin boards. But I hope this was enough to pique your curiosity. One final thought: qualitative researchers often can be extroverts – sometimes extreme extroverts – who tend to forget that some research participants can actually be a bit uncomfortable with face-to-face interactions. That little bit of space you allow those people by conducting an interview via webcam can be just enough to make them more relaxed and forthcoming. So, in this time of social distancing, embrace the webcam. It can bring unique qualities to your research.
