Methodology Mashup
This type of research focuses on unstructured data like thoughts, feelings, and motivations, usually gathered through focus groups or open-ended questions.
What is qualitative research?
Calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters, this three-letter metric is a standard benchmark for customer loyalty.
What is NPS? (Net Promoter Score)
This bias occurs when a respondent answers questions based on what they think makes them look good, smart, or socially acceptable, rather than sharing their true behavior.
What is social desirability bias?
This cardinal sin of survey writing happens when you pack two different topics into one question, such as asking, "How satisfied are you with our product's price and quality?"
What is a double-barreled question?
In 1985, Coca-Cola ignored their own focus group warnings about emotional attachment to their original recipe and launched this historic product formula, only to bring back the original taste 79 days later due to massive consumer backlash.
What is New Coke?
Abbreviated as IDI, this methodology involves a one-on-one session to dive deep into a participant's behavior and opinions.
What is an In-Depth Interview?
This common 5-point or 7-point rating scale asks respondents to indicate exactly how much they agree or disagree with a specific statement.
What is a Likert scale?
This "agreeable" bias happens when participants have a tendency to select "Agree" or "Yes" to survey questions regardless of their actual opinions.
What is acquiescence bias? (Acceptable: Yea-saying bias).
This frustrating data error happens when a respondent gets bored and clicks the exact same rating, like "3 out of 5," all the way down a massive grid question without reading them.
What is straightlining?
This methodology involves shipping a physical product or prototype directly to a participant's residence so they can test it in their daily routine.
What is an In-Home Usage Test (IHUT)?
This type of analysis groups survey respondents into distinct clusters based on shared characteristics, behaviors, or attitudes, rather than just demographics.
What is market segmentation? (Acceptable: Cluster analysis).
This cognitive bias occurs when a researcher has a preconceived theory and unintentionally designs a study or interprets data to prove themselves right while ignoring contrary evidence.
What is confirmation bias?
This occurs when a question is phrased to subtly nudge the respondent toward a specific answer, like starting a question with, "Most experts agree that our app is great, but what do you think?"
What is a leading question?
This trade-off methodology forces respondents to choose between different combinations of product attributes, allowing researchers to calculate the mathematical value of individual features.
What is Conjoint Analysis?
This statistical term describes the extent to which two variables move in relation to each other, though it famously does not equal causation.
What is correlation?
This specific error happens when the people who choose to respond to a survey are systematically different from those who ignore it, leaving a massive gap in your data.
What is non-response bias?
This psychological concept describes when a tired respondent gives the absolute minimum effort required to answer a survey, choosing an option that is "good enough" rather than spending the mental energy to give an accurate answer.
What is satisficing?
This methodology involves observing consumers in their natural environment, such as watching how they shop in a grocery store aisle, without intervening.
What is ethnography?
This metric tells a researcher how much variation or spread there is in a set of survey data. A low number means responses are tightly clustered around the average, while a high number means they are widely scattered.
What is standard deviation?
Named after a psychological phenomenon observed in factory workers, this bias occurs when research participants alter their natural behavior simply because they know they are being watched.
What is the Hawthorne effect?
This phenomenon occurs when the answer to an earlier survey question accidentally influences how a participant responds to later questions, like asking about a specific brand flaw right before asking for an overall brand rating.
What is an order effect? (Acceptable: Priming / Questionnaire conditioning).