Technology news and reviews for qualitative and market researchers

"Alexa, what's today's date?" It's a common question asked of the reported 100 million Amazon Alexa devices sold. Yet until now, any conversation has been somewhat stilted and needing to be prefaced by "Alexa".

We've been trawling tech developments that we think fellow researchers might find helpful, rather than threatened by, and these are the results.

As a researcher, finding a reliable, cost effective and accurate transcription service can seem like a difficult task. The cheaper machine services can be inaccurate and incorrect, while human transcribers tend to be more accurate, but can be out of many people's price ranges.

I love choice. I love the fact that, as a qualitative researcher, there is such a diverse variety of technologies and methodologies available to me today.

Distractions, whether smart phones, colleagues, or office snacks, all make it increasingly difficult to focus on work. Small wonder then that food and drink innovations geared to boosting productivity and focus are entering the market, and now it's music streaming's turn.

Clients appreciate the service that a field agency brings, but possess little interest in what goes on behind the scenes to provide it, least of all the time-consuming but necessary task of paying incentives.

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are changing how people do quant research, digital marketing and data analytics. But it's not relevant for qual research. Or is it?

One of my pet peeves when it comes to new product testing is just how often we end up relying on mood boards or wordy feature lists to bring new ideas to life. How much can you really tell from a couple of mocked up pictures or a few sentences? And is this about to change?