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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…
Which of these two questions do you find more annoying, question A or question B? A. Foodie TV has announced a competition to select the best destination for food. What can your city do to win? B. In terms of the restaurant choices, what is important for a city to offer? Now which of these…
There are no magic numbers for sample size. There is no such thing as a statistically significant sample. Unfortunately, those two words—statistically significant—are bandied about with such abandon that they are quickly losing their meaning. Even people who should know better (the data wonks at Google Surveys should know better, right?) are saying ridiculous things…
If there is one thing I hope you remember from your college statistics class, it’s this: Correlation does not imply causation. This is especially important to remember in our world of big data. Any large dataset will have hundreds of thousands of correlations, but most of those correlations will reflect purely random occurrences that mean…
If you are a market research professional, I urge you to look for continuing education beyond the MR industry groups such as the Insights Association, Quirk’s, etc. and instead look to a more academic organization like AAPOR, the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Yes, their conferences will be the most boring you ever attend.…
At first I thought this was the dumbest survey question ever. Why ask people what device they are using to take the survey, when you know from the platform meta-data what device they are using? Yes, even lame self-service survey platforms can (and should be) capturing information about device, operating system, IP address, start time,…
It amazes me that so many marketing research surveys are not responsive and optimized for mobile devices. I understand why they are not optimized, as decent mobile surveys are hard to design, and no, all the junk platforms that tout mobile optimization are not good options. But if you’re hiring a research or consulting firm,…
It was so weird, right after the election, to see a media frenzy heaping praise and attention on the one poll that got it wrong. The USC/LA Times poll predicted a Trump win, with 47% of voters choosing Trump and 44% choosing Clinton. Right after the election, media headlines trumpeted its success: “How One Pollster…
It bugs me that companies would use customer feedback surveys not for information or learning, but to manipulate customers into buying from them again. On the other hand, how many companies inundate us with those zillions of customer satisfaction surveys because they truly care about learning? What they really care about are their “metrics,” their…