One memorable lesson from reading Edward Tufte’s books about visual displays of quantitative information is that charts are not the only way to display data. Indeed, they are sometimes a worse way. We should always at least consider a table as a superior alternative: Tables are clearly the best way to show exact numerical values,…
When Dilbert starts making fun of the most common words in market research—actionable insights—it’s time to consider letting them go. And now that nearly every marketing and research professional, every market research firm, and every data analysis tool touts a unique ability to offer actionable insight, I think we can now safely agree that the…
One of the “best practices” for survey research I learned in graduate school and then early in my career is this: Survey measurement scales should have at least five points. Presumably that provides enough room for variation, and it provides a neutral midpoint as well. But it is not true. Or, like all best practices,…
Here’s a sobering question for professionals who work in the “insights” industry: How much of your market research really offers insight? Not just validating data, or routine measurements, or pro forma tracking. Not just percentages of “how many said what” in a customized study. By true insight we mean: a direct answer to a deeply…
A favorite pastime in my household is to laugh at the absurd statistics our local weatherman conjures up to make his reports sound dramatic, scientific, and driven by a deep analysis of data. Things like, “These are the first three consecutive days since 1989 of 90+ degree temperatures following an immediately preceding four-week string of…
I often look to excellent journalism as a model for how researchers should turn data into stories: Do investigative work, interview the right people, analyze the details, then lay out a meaningful and contextualized narrative about the who, what, when, where and why. In fact, when I talk about our research and analysis approach that turns data…
The goal of great market research is to provide answers substantiated with data. To make that research really shine, the ultimate goal should be to Turn Data Into Stories. That is why, in the video we released earlier this year, we highlighted “turning data into stories” as the definitive last step to getting your research…
The hottest new job title invading the world of market research is “data scientist.” It has many of us starting to wonder, aren’t we all data scientists? Whether quantitative or qualitative, we spend most of our time collecting, manipulating, interpreting, and presenting data. Our methods are grounded in social science. Put the two together and…
Tip #3 of our presentation tomorrow at the LIMRA marketing research conference is this: Make your infographic something to explore. It stands in stark contrast to our advice for research reports, which is to make everything utterly transparent. Here I explain the reasoning behind this advice, what it means to “explore,” and most importantly, how…
How far should you go when reporting your findings, into the territory of interpreting your findings? An excellent researcher never stops struggling with that question, and the better you are, the more intense the discomfort every time you stretch away from the data to advise on what it all means. The importance of stretching beyond…