Editor’s note: Tim Macer, managing director of U.K. consulting firm meaning ltd., writes as an independent software analyst and advisor.
While online qualitative may still be considered new and revolutionary to many in the industry, research software firm Itracks has two products that have been maturing in this space for over 10 years. Set alongside AOL IM, MySpace, Second Life and Facebook, these tools seems to align perfectly with the zeitgeist of the social Web today.
This Canadian company actually offers four different software applications for Web-based qualitative research, as well as tools for quantitative data collection. In this review, we will concentrate on the two more established qualitative products: Itracks Online Focus Groups (OFG), for real-time interactive focus groups, where all participants are online simultaneously; and Itracks Bulletin Board (BB), where questions are posed and answered asynchronously, usually over several days.
With OFG, you start by logging into the Web-based software and booking a time for your group. This ensures that Itracks can assign a tech support person to supervise your group and be on hand to help you or your clients and observers. In preparation, you should also upload your discussion guide, which you can cut and paste in, or you can import it from a Word or Excel document very easily. The guide is particularly useful online, not only for structuring your interview, but also because with a single click you can launch the next question for consideration, reducing the amount of IM-style typing you need to do. You can even build up a standard library of probes, which you can launch as required, or tailor simply by retyping the odd word. It all saves precious time online.
You then invite your respondents by e-mail using the invitation capability, and at the appointed hour, you will find those who show up assembling in a virtual waiting room. Here, you get them to complete your profile questionnaire and then invite them to join the group. If you want to, you could run several groups at once, and invite respondents into different ones, such as a men’s or women’s group.
The beauty of the method is that, as you ask each question, and each respondent answers, their complete responses flow directly into a structured transcript which shows who made the comment and what section and question it relates to, tied back to their demographics. You can also control whether the answers are “influenced” or “uninfluenced,” i.e., do the other respondents see what each one says, or is it only you and the clients and observers in the virtual gallery?
Of course, the clients you invite to observe are invisible to the participants. They effectively have their own room and can interact with one another, and you can observe their chat too. They can also send questions directly to the moderator, unobserved by respondents. Rather than adding to the moderator’s stress, this can be particularly useful if material emerges that you have not been briefed on - you can discreetly ask the client for clarification right there, while the group is taking place.
Bulletin Board module
The Bulletin Board module is a separate program, but it is modelled on the OFG software, so all of the controls are set out the same way. In both programs controls are all relatively simple and close at hand. A series of tabs across the window group together functionality in a sensible way: the pre-flight functions tend to be grouped together for preparing the guide, issuing invitations, etc. The left-most tab, called simply “view” is where the group takes place. In both tools, the screen is subdivided into panels, one showing the guide, another showing the respondents. The main part is taken up with the working space where the questions and answers appear, along with any chat with observers or tech support, and a flexible space at the top called a whiteboard where you can display any Web graphical content, audio, video or even other Web sites. You can plan all exhibits in advance from the guide so as a question is asked, the whiteboard will display the relevant stimulus material.
The important distinction with the asynchronous discussion is the control you have over when and how each question is launched. Your participants will come, contribute and go at a time convenient to them, so you can leave the board open over several days or more. To pace things, and keep the momentum of the discussion going, you can feed questions in on a timed basis, which you control from your discussion guide, in advance. You can even be asking questions when you are tucked up in bed! Bliss for the typical moderator who has more air miles than he or she knows what to do with.
Of most value from a research perspective, you can adjust each question to determine whether the answers are influenced or uninfluenced by responses from other participants.
Lacks little
There is little that the software lacks in current online focus group capabilities. What neither tool offers is much in the way of tools for exercises. Online, the ability for respondents to mark-up images or complete a card-sort could be useful at times. Beyond the snap polling tool, OFG provides no support for any respondent exercises. But the omission of the means for respondents to upload images or create a scrapbook needs to be addressed, as this would open the door to “bricolage”-style research, where respondents can contribute ideas, sketches, examples of favorite Web sites and so on. This approach is made for the more considered, extended engagement of the bulletin board, and from which deep insights can flow.
The immediate availability of a complete transcript, categorized by discussion topic and tagged by respondent is a massive labor-saving device for the researcher. It also brings a precision to the data that far exceeds anything that can be obtained from a transcribed audio recording. But it is disappointing not to see any advanced analytical tools to help to query this data. Admittedly, it is easy to export to Excel, and much can be done there. However, one frequently observed consequence of shifting qualitative research online is that you tend to get more data - often much more. Some users speak of successfully running groups with up to 50 participants. This means you can easily be overwhelmed by the amount of data that flows from online qualitative research. Better linkage to some of the CAQDAS (computer-assisted qualitative data analysis systems) such as XSight or MAXQDA, or text mining tools such as QDA Miner or SPSS Text Analysis would be a great help, if Itracks does not wish to build up its own analytical offering.
New channels
Monica Zinchiak, who heads San Diego-based Z Research Services, estimates she has run hundreds of groups using Itracks over the last decade. She believes that the advent of OFG and BB has brought two new and distinct channels to qualitative researchers.
“It’s not fair to directly compare online with traditional focus groups,” Zinchiak says. “They have different qualities and different applications - I never try to sell one in place of the other. Early on, we did get pushback from clients [when using online research] - they have to understand what can be accomplished and its value as a method. You have to be prepared to educate your clients. But the clients I work with today tend to understand this very well now.”
She feels that online focus groups are much more natural in their flow than many realize. “There is a certain rhythm, and a certain pattern to the way the data flows in from the respondents, which I don’t entirely know how to explain. It might take 10 minutes of the focus group before it settles down, and then it is as if everyone is dancing together. The rhythm starts, and it becomes almost second nature for everyone.
“I don’t think it takes a lot of effort to get familiar with the software. There is a lot to think about when you first start out, but once you get a couple of projects under your belt, it becomes a very comfortable medium to work in,” she says.
Zinchiak finds the permanent online presence of an Itracks technician in the group very reassuring. “I am very fond of the support staff and the service they offer - they will truly go out of their way to help you and are always available for the viewing clients.”
Considering the advantages of using Itracks, Zinchiak singles out the ability to pre-load your discussion guide. “In one click you can have a 45-word sentence on screen instead of having to type it all out,” she says.
She also cites receiving the transcript in a form that is easy to slice and dice within Excel. “It does not take much time to polish it up and create a really nice deliverable for my client. Also, I consider the moderator and client/observer tools are a little more intuitive and straightforward in Itracks - other vendors seem to have added in the bells and whistles simply because they can, and that may lead an unseasoned researcher to confusion.”
Zinchiak tends to run bulletin- board or journals topics over three to five days, sometimes longer. “It depends very much on the topic and the target. My most successful projects on the bulletin board have been with physicians and patients for pharmaceutical companies, among busy professionals, CEOs and high-level decision makers, and also for sensitive topics where some of these people may not have other social outlets to talk about their problems. It can be a safe place for them to talk about it anonymously.”
Her advice to the novice online researcher is to “keep the subject matter and the client’s goals in mind when deciding to use this; and keep the screening criteria tight. It is even more important to have articulate respondents with an online group and use exercises or projective techniques that the respondent can handle in that environment.”
Clients quite satisfied
Samantha Kennedy is president of ASK Qualitative Consulting in New Fairfield, Conn., and has around seven years of experience with both OFG and BB products from Itracks. “Depending on the research objectives, you may decide to go with an in-person or online methodology, but in general, whether it is category brand exploration, branding, advertising or communications research, you can do it as effectively online as in person.”
Comparing online with conventional research, Kennedy says: “All of my clients who have experienced online research have been quite satisfied with the results. I think the insights you get out if it are very good, and depending on the research, they can even be better - particularly with the bulletin board. Respondents don’t feel the pressure of knowing that there are seven other people in the room and they all have to take turns to talk. There is less pressure on respondents to not seem unintelligent in front of their peers. You can hear from all of the respondents on every question as opposed to picking and choosing which one or two you are going to hear from.”
She praises Itracks on the improvements it has made to the bulletin board software in recent versions. “They have really paid attention to how people were using it and made it a lot easier to set up the discussion guide and the options for response modes: influenced or uninfluenced. Uninfluenced is very useful and that is now the default.”
Asked how long it would take an experienced moderator to get up to speed with the Itracks software, she says, “If that person is used to using IM or blogging, I would say it would take someone no more than half a day. The user interface is very easy, and the labelling is very good, making it easy to follow. When I started, I ran three test groups before I did my first live one. After that, I was good to go - but how long it would take someone else would depend on that individual’s comfort level with technology."
