Here is a sly little test I recommend giving the next researcher who offers up their help on your next quantitative survey. Ask if they have ever used a DIY survey tool, and what advice they would give you about sample size based on this selection tool you looked at from one of the largest…
Customizing MaxDiff exercises by piping in text from previous survey answers might seem like a good idea, but analyst beware: if you are estimating individual-level scores using hierarchical Bayes or latent class analysis, you must split the data into subsets before you calculate the scores. Your results will be nonsense otherwise. Here is the scenario…
Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on all things that make our lives rich and rewarding, and my friend and colleague Henry (the farmer for whom I work on Saturdays) got me thinking about what I am thankful for in my work specifically, and in a new way. He asked us to think about who…
Surveys run the gamut from silly to serious, and from sloppy to scientific. Occasionally we do something silly if a client insists (though we generally advise against it). But we never do sloppy surveys, and we hope you never do them either. Lean as far as possible towards rigor and science within reasonable constraints of…
Nobody gets really good at market research by taking classes. It comes from learning on the job and in the field from other researchers. That is because researchers are always solving new problems and answering new questions that have never been asked before. That inspired us to make our summer newsletter The Big “How To”…
If you want the most valid and reliable measures you can get, forget about NPS and other 11-point scales that so many companies use as their primary measure of customer satisfaction these days. It turns out that 2-point scales (yes vs. no, satisfied vs. dissatisfied, etc.) are far more reliable measures for gauging consumer attitudes.…
You might think that writing a feature article about liars, cheaters, and trolls in online surveys means we have a pretty damning view of online polls as a method of research. Not so. We are all in when it comes to online polling, and in fact it comprises the majority of the survey research we…
This week one of our sample suppliers said “no” when we asked if we could re-contact respondents for a purpose other than our original request. Good thing I asked, and you know what? I’m glad they said no. I want suppliers to think carefully about seemingly simple requests, and to point out ways in which…
We just completed a very cool research project (a concept test) that perfectly demonstrates the power of MaxDiff and TURF analysis. These two techniques can help you make smarter product decisions than other types of concept tests. Here is an overview of what we did and why it was so powerful. We asked consumers to…
It seems that every time we write or speak about market research infographics, people pay attention. Leading up the Fall 2017 Corporate Researchers Conference, the Insights Association asked for a preview article of our presentation on infographics for its weekly newsletter. It ended up being at the top of the Association’s list of most-read articles…