Alternatively, sometimes, for instance in a longer term communities, you might want willing participants to share more about themselves with others, to help them get to know each other and inspire new and better conversations.

All this and more is now possible with Liveminds social profiles. We’ve:

• Expanded the private information researchers see on each participant to include things like age and income
• Created a public profile area where participants can share social info with others. This includes things like a short bio, hobbies and interests, even their Twitter username so researchers and participants can follow their public conversations
• Added a Researcher Notes section so you can collaborate with other researchers and share your thoughts on specific participants

You can see how this looks to a researcher below:

These new features make moderating and analysing quicker and easier and give you even greater context to your research. If you’d like to see how this or any other Liveminds feature works, please do get in touch.

If you’d like to do try Liveminds in Arabic yourself, just select the locale drop down, which will be in the bottom left hand corner of your screen. If you don’t have a free Liveminds account already and would like to run a trial project in any language, simply get in touch.

• Lots of different phones
• Lots of different operating systems
• Challenges in going mobile e.g changing signal strength

This does increase the important of finding people with the right kit and the right know-how to respond using the app.

However, with Liveminds there is no need to ensure everyone has a smartphone to participate in an online + mobile project. This gives you the freedom to focus on recruiting exactly the sample you need, rather than worrying about people’s technical know-how.

If a potentially great participant doesn’t have smartphone, there’s no need to leave them out of your project, they can simply reply to those same activities on the website instead.

This means you get the best possible participants, able to express themselves in the way they feel most comfortable with. CC Image courtesy of DavidDennisPhotos.com

Mobile technology

With both iPhone and Android versions of the app available to your participants, you have a huge percentage of smartphone users covered – now 81% of smartphones bought in the US and 86% in the main 5 European markets. (Kantar Worldpanel)

The Liveminds mobile app runs on all versions of Android and Apple’s iOS released in the last 3 years, so you’ve basically got access to all the people who really know how to use their smartphone. However, we also recommend reiterating to your recruiters the other smartphone platforms that it won’t work on as well, to ensure there is no room for confusion.

Experience using smartphones

Owning a smartphone does not mean that you necessarily know how to use it. The Liveminds mobile app is designed to be as effortless as the online platform, but there are still some very basic requirements, like being able to install an app and take a picture.

If you want video responses, then it is advisable to insist that they have uploaded videos to another social platform like Facebook or YouTube before. This means they are aware of technical considerations which are beyond our control, such as the time it can take to do this and the impact of things like changing signal strength.

Smartphone bills

It’s also important to get their confirmation that they are either happy to upload content under the terms of their contract, or can do it regularly and easily via Wi-Fi.

There are a million and one types of mobile contracts in the world, so in the Liveminds mobile app, participants can choose upfront to sync their content via Wi-Fi only if they prefer. However, if they do it via 3G, then they need to know they are responsible for any charges that could incur. This is very clear in the app itself, but is well worth stating in the screener too.

If your participants might be travelling overseas during the course of your project then this becomes very important.

Recruiter’s experience

Ask your recruitment agency if they have experience of working on mobile projects. If they haven’t, it’s worth really double-checking that they are following the our guidelines closely. We’ve seen situations where agencies have misrepresented their understanding of the subject and it’s impacted on the success of the projects. This can easily be avoided but if you want help with the recruitment on your next mobile project, do get in touch.

To help with this, we have added a little button that speeds the process up for you. When you’ve entered a participant’s details, you can now click a ‘Create & Add Another button to instantly reload the page, so you can get straight onto the next one. The form remembers the key characteristics of the participant you’ve just entered, such as their group and their preferred language. We’ve also made some tweaks to the way this feature works for creating questions, to make entering your discussion guide faster too. If you’ve got a question about this or any other feature, get in touch.

The conflict raises questions about how scientific online qualitative researchers should be.  For example, should they present stimulus in a controlled, private way?  Or should they instead focus on getting more value out of participants by making the experience engaging, open and social?

In the scientific corner we have the traditionalists, dedicated to techniques that control the group effect.  For example they might insist on getting private responses before exposing a piece of stimulus to the whole group. In general, they want online qualitative platforms that give them control and therefore produce higher levels of confidence in the results.  That’s all well and good but it makes the experience less interesting for the participants (which in turn means they need to be paid more to take part).

In the engagement corner we have the progressives, trying to get more hours and higher participation rates out of participants.  For example, they spend time building relationships with participants and encouraging discussion between them. They tend to prefer presenting stimulus in an open, public forum since it can inspire higher levels of efficiency and participant involvement.  What it lacks in scientific rigour it makes up for in higher participation.

As with many conflicting viewpoints, there is value in both perspectives.  I think what we need from technology for research is a Brian Cox-esque compromise: something that is both engaging and scientifically valid. The more research technologists can help make research engaging and fun, while retaining some of the lessons from science about how conversations should be controlled, the better it will be for clients, researchers and participants.

CC Image courtesy of Tixx on Flickr.

Liveminds’ new Partner Program is a bespoke 6 month course of workshops, training, consultancy and creative support, to help you do lots more of that. We will fast track your agency’s online + mobile offering and ensure all your key people are ready for this new era in our industry.

 Program Structure 

The exact structure of your program, beyond the workshop, is defined by your needs and the upfront planning session.  This can be adapted and optimised if your needs change over time.

Program Leaders

We’re very happy to announce that Tom Woodnutt, an independent conversation strategist that has trained many leading UK research agencies and brands, since moving on from his role as Director of Innovation at Hall and Partners, will be joining myself, Hugh Carling, co-founder of Liveminds, as a program leader.

We will be supported by other very experienced figures from the industry, both on agency and buyer side, to give you everything you need to make the most of the big new opportunities out there now.

Services

The services you choose based on the plan we create can be any or all of the below.

Stage 2. Preparation

Stage 3. Action

Packages

There will be two packages on offer to suit your agency’s budget- Platinum and Gold.

• Platinum will give you the Workshop + 70 hours of our time + Debrief
• Gold will give you the Workshop + 30 hours of our time + Debrief

Both these Packages are sure to accelerate your agency’s adoption of new methodologies and technologies and help you build for a strong future in a fast changing industry. Furthermore, they are fairly priced so that a single project win could recoup your investment. From then on, the sky is the limit..

Find out more

For further information, prices or to meet up to discuss how this would help your agency get ahead of the field, call Hugh Carling on +44 207 873 7270 or get in touch today.

Since Liveminds became the first online qual company in Europe to add mobile to its’ platform in February 2012, launching simultaneously on iPhone and Android, we have learnt a lot about how it works in practise too. Almost 60% of our projects now have mobile activities in them as well. We’ve fed all this learning back into evolving the platform to make the joined up online + mobile experience super smooth for participants and researchers. 

So now you’ve got the ability to effortlessly combine online + mobile in your research, the key thing is to design your project to get the most out of each channel. So below we’ve shared 8 key lessons we’ve learned over the last 12 months to help you with your next project.

1. When and when not to use mobile

Mobile is exceptional for recording participants’ experiences, thoughts or feelings, as they happen, with text, video or images.
However, remember the small size of a mobile phone does create limitations too. You don’t want participants to be trying to give detailed responses to complex stimulus, by typing their reply on a mobile phone screen.
In Liveminds, researchers have complete control over this – you simply choose which questions you want to be ‘online only’ and which ones ‘+mobile’. You also have complete control over who sees participants’ responses – researchers only, others in their group, or any person from any group.  In all formats, when you probe a participant’s response to ask for further details, they will be sent a direct link to reply online. This way, you are always getting the best out of both online + mobile channels.

2. Number of activities

Typically, there are less than 5 live ‘+mobile’ activities at any one time. Giving participants too many topics to be considering each day, as they live their busy lives is counterproductive and engagement will suffer.

3. Timing

As with online research, you need to manage expectations correctly to keep participants fully engaged. If you say 30 minutes a day, then don’t set tasks that will take longer. Test the tasks out yourself in advance, to see how long they will actually take. Uploading videos every day is asking a lot.

4. Type

In longer projects, mix up the activities to keep it interesting for your participants. Ask them to go to different places, experience different things, consider different aspects of the topic. Have them share some of their experiences with others for discussion in the group, aswell as keeping them private. Request that they respond in different ways, sometimes, text, sometimes video, sometimes with images.

5. Video

The ease with which you can get videos from participant’s via their smartphone, is a key advantage of mobile, whether it’s of their environment or talking to camera. Remember that some people will express themselves better with the written word however, and that video is still time consuming to record and upload. So don’t over do it. If there are key things you really want captured in video, you must be be very clear on that in your instructions.

When you do, make sure that you also give strong guidance on the filming. You should include the length of response you want, (we’d recommend 1 minute max), the angle you’d like, getting the lighting right, and so on. Sometimes ask them to plan upfront what they want to say to ensure the result is on topic and has the highest impact.
Recommend that they watch back their video before submitting it, so they can be sure it meets your expectations. Suggest they re-record it if it doesn’t.

Remember that, as always in Liveminds, you can add in new online or mobile questions whenever you need to, easily mixing methodologies within your discussion guide, whilst keeping your view firmly focused on the subject.

6. Moderating

Check for outputs every day and probe participants while the moment is still fresh. Remember that watching participants videos takes longer than reading text though, so factor that into your timings. In Liveminds, responses captured on mobile are presented just the same as online responses but with a simple flag highlighting it’s source, ensuring you know the context in which it was created. So you won’t need to make any other changes to your moderation schedule.

7. Analysis & Reporting

Make sure that you also set aside time at the end of the project to review, analyse and edit all the great media content that you’ve selected as you’re moderating.
If you’d like the help of our own producer to turn this into a high-impact 5 minute video story, to accompany your slide presentation and really captivate your client, get in touch. We can work to a short, clear brief, outlining the story you want to tell and we will do the rest for you.

8. Seeing is believing

Of course, if you haven’t tried mobile qual yet, then there is no substitute for doing it for yourself, to establish what works best for you and your agency. So if you’d like to do a free 2 week trial, and show your colleagues how it really can get closer than ever before to consumer behaviour, get in touch.

30 new question types

Now you can easily do that with the launch of our ‘Custom Questions’ service. This gives you the option of choosing from more than 30 extra research questions types in your Liveminds project. These range from simple polls to tables, ranking exercises, image heat maps and card sorting exercises. It gives you a huge range of extra tools in your box, to get exactly the results you need.

How it works

• You send us your Custom Question requirements.
• We create the question and post it to your project.
• You test it and confirm it’s exactly as needed.
• We schedule the publication date and add a link in your Project Details form, giving you a visual summary of the data as it comes in. 
• When you’re done, you get a one click download of the raw data. That’s it! 

Easy engagement

When your question is published, participants will receive an email telling there is something new for them to do. They simply open the question and click the Custom Question link, revealing it to them. They post their response, confirm the question is complete and move straight onto the next activity.

Keeping it simple

The great news is that all this extra power is offered without in any way compromising the beautiful simplicity of the Liveminds platform. All this extra functionality only appears when you need it. Here are two illustrations of the new Custom Questions:

Card Sorting

Ranking Exercise

Try it for free

Existing clients can try out some example Custom Questions now, by following this link to their Agency 3000 case studies account. 

If you’d like to have a demo, get a quote, or want to find out more about how we can help with your next online qualitative research project, please get in touch now.

Well, the new feature we’ve added to Liveminds enables you to do just that. So, whether you are creating a diary study and wanting to ask the same questions each day of the week, or whether you want to set up another whole project for another market, with an identical discussion guide, now with one click it’s all done. You can even duplicate an individual question.

We think this new feature will save some of you a lot of time and make the set up of your Liveminds project even faster and easier than before. Yet, none of this will compromise the huge flexibility of the  Liveminds platform to create your project in exactly the way that you want to.

If you’d like to see how this or any other Liveminds feature works, please do get in touch.

CC Image courtesy of Ethermoon on Flickr.

Of course, the platform is just one part of the project process. Things don’t always happen when we want them to. Recruiters send lists late, participants suddenly have other commitments and need to be replaced, clients make last minute adjustments to discussion guides.

So, we’ve released an update today which takes the pain of this away. Latecomers will now, by default, automatically be added to every question in a project. It’s a 30 second job. See how this works below:

Of course, if you have a more complex project structure, then you can also choose to assign these new participants solely to the questions relevant to them. So if you want to explore a topic only with to specific groups, or indeed, to a hand picked set of participants from across your groups, you can do that easily too.

If you’d like to see how this or any other Liveminds feature works, please do get in touch.