Research in a mobile world

If you haven’t heard yet, AT&T is dropping unlimited data! By the time I post this, it probably will be unavailable altogether. I'm sure it had nothing whatsoever to do with the timing of the Apple WWDC development conference where the new iPhone is expected to be announced - you know, the one that will probably make it even easier to consume hoards of wireless data. AT&T is letting existing customers keep their plans, but isn’t signing up new customers.

Now there will be two basic plans, one for ‘regular’ users and one for heavy users. If you believe AT&T, then this move will actually save most consumers money. But the problem is that people have no idea how much data they are using. Sure you can get apps to monitor your data use, and in reality, it’s only heavy video conference and mobile TV users who will surpass the new limits and who are causing problems, but it’s an easy decision for them – it ‘s the rest of us I worry about.

Is this a sign of things to come? Sprint still offers unlimited data, as I’m sure do many others. As the iPhone is released on more networks (if those rumours come true), then we will likely see the other carriers experience the same bandwidth problems that AT&T is experiencing.

p.s. for a good read, check out the previous post on this blog post “Are we in for a wireless traffic jam?”.

Furthermore, there’s some talk that 4G will deliver the ability for metered billing.

So what does this mean for research? Well, in one sense it bodes well for the use of Apps over the Mobile Web because Apps can be so much more efficient than the web. Furthermore, survey data is measured in kilobytes, let alone megabytes (until you start incorporating heavy multimedia transfer for display or capture). These plans allow for gigabytes – so we’re probably safe on that front… Apps also don't suffer from Latency like mobile websites do, so the experience is better (a little more on that here).

So will it truly matter to research? Users could become more hesitant to use their precious data allotment on surveys, no matter how compact our data is. Our primary challenge could become one of education in our screening and recruitment activities when we go to launch a customer satisfaction questionnaire, or any other mobile research program. Of course, we must also incent adequately to cover those costs AND the respondent's time.

Personally, I think the mobile Internet will eventually reach the state of the “regular” Internet, where most broadband companies stratify their offerings based on bandwidth (How fast can I get what I’m downloading), not total use (How much will it cost me if I download this)?

We have had good success getting people who are on a wide variety of networks to participate in a cellular survey, so frankly I’m not that worried. But, we continue to keep an eye on the evolution of the wireless marketplace, optimize our products, and work with our partners and clients to educate participants.

Meanwhile, the rest of the mobile world continues to trudge along the App path – Google now includes Apps in search results.

It’s all part of the fascinating evolution of mobility and research!

In a recent blog post I wondered about who was going to tackle the issue of new multi-faceted datasets that incorporate rich media like photos alongside traditional survey answers. Aside from the sheer overwhelming nature of these datasets, the industry is crying out for non-static dashboards and reports as opposed to the tried and true PowerPoint file & stacks of cross-tabs (this was driven home as a major theme at the recent CASRO technology conference).

At that conference I showed how we used Pivot by Microsoft to dig into quali-quant ethnographic data from a recent diary research pilot project. It’s very cool – I recommend checking it out. Microsoft is releasing a way to integrate Pivot “collections” as they’re calling them into Silverlight Websites! It’s a way to share meaningful data in a cool and informative way like I’ve never seen before. (p.s. a big thanks goes out to Candice at Luminosity for pointing me towards this…)

… And if you like that, check out SeaDragon, the underlying technology. This 6 minute overview from the TED site will blow your mind.

Lastly, it looks like there are some new players in this space in MR. I learned about Cognicient, a UK company that specializes in dynamic dashboards for longitudinal data.

Connect these tools to your survey system, and you may just tackle that data yet!
 

We're presenting this week at the CASRO conference with Ipsos. We worked together to field a mobile, self-initiated digital ethnography with users who have Blackberry and Nokia phones. We think it's the first study of its kind, and I wanted to put down my thoughts on why we did it.

With all of the press that Apple creates, I think most people can intuitively guess about the 'how' of mobile research. All modes have their use. It ranges from quick polls via SMS, to mobile web through to Apps.

Quant Scale Qual... I thought that sounded more elegant than "Qualnt - the new Quali-Quant". 

What happens when your diary studies routinely generate 2000 completes? Or maybe they're not "completes", but life blurbs, media micro blogs, or any other new research thing you can invent a name for. Our clients are starting to work through these issues, and companies like Language Logic provide a great starting point with tools that broach predictive/automatic coding and easily handle multimedia data formats.

But multimedia data is a complex beast. It may take Google or Apple to bring us the tools we need to get over the automation hump. For example, check out Google’s face detection technology and iPhoto’s Faces technology.

How this could be licensed, bent, twisted or re-purposed for research is yet to be seen… but the possibilities are exciting and I can't wait to see who solves it first.

A client of ours is giving a presentation to a group of colleagues on why they chose the hardware they did for a self-completed study. We help clients through this all the time, but it got me thinking... What are rules when it comes to picking the right hardware for MCAPI, diary studies or other mobile data collection.

1. Consider hardware and software in Tandem.
   
   In many cases, the software provides the capability you are looking for, and the hardware is secondary.
    
2.  (well, maybe this one's really 1.b.) Don't be swayed by what's sexy, what's inside counts too
   
   You'd be surprised how often we hear from someone who has bought a fleet of iPhones, or sourced a no-name device from "a guy who could get them a really good deal". They soon learn that it's not a good deal if it wasn't the right hardware for the job.  
   
3. Don’t buy too far into the future.
   
   Technology is going to change, so it’s likely not even possible to try and pick something you think will still work for you 6 years from now.
    
4. Ask your technology partners. They will often have
   1. Blogs: http://blog.techneos.com 
   2. Whitepapers : http://www.techneos.com/resources/white_papers
   3. Staff who are up to speed on the latest offerings
       
5. Ask your colleagues. They will undoubtedly have valuable experiences to share.

1. Augment traditional survey questionnaires with photos and locations to enrich data and drive new insights
2. Greater mobility means a higher likelihood that respondents will have the ability to take a survey anytime, anywhere
3. Time & location stamps give higher confidence that data was entered where and when it was supposed to/reported to be
4. Real-time data allows for compliance monitoring
5. Eliminate the problem of recall

Scenarios which can benefit significantly from a mobile survey system include:

·         Detailed Category Interaction (diary studies)– EG. Snacking/Eating:

o   Where and when did you eat? Why did you choose what you did? What options were available? How did you feel? Show us what you bought/made?

·         Consumption/Usage that happens anywhere, or where location affects choice:

o   FMCG, or disposable consumer goods

o   Tobacco & Alcohol (typically done in academic or social research settings)

o   Diapers

·         Understanding a day/week/month in the life of a respondent segment:

o   GPS capture for significant insight in to patterns

·         Shopping/Retail:

o   Exercises to create outfits, or understand how segments choose where to buy different articles of clothes

o   Pseudo-mystery shopping (audit retail vendor knowledge or Sales Rep attention to customer)

·         Medical:

o   Physician Drug rep encounters

o   Prescription/consumption and results of regulated products

·         Exploratory & Innovation. Perhaps most valuable for dynamic, important or changing segments:

o   New parents, Brand Mavens, Primary Grocery Shoppers, Baby Boomers

·         Advertising and Media Exposure:

o   Where & when did you see advertising? Show us the ad. How did it affect you?

·         Mobile populations, or users of a product or service that by definition is mobile:

o   Frequent fliers / Airline V.I.P.’s

o   Commuters /Heavy Transit Users

o   Sales/Service Reps