Tom Woodnutt
Tom Woodnutt is Founder of Feeling Mutual, the agile online and mobile qualitative research specialists. He helps clients and agencies run global studies and offers training in the space. Tom has been a Digital Skills trainer for the Association of Qualitative Researchers (AQR) and is a regular speaker at industry conferences, including the MRS, MRMW and IleX.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth millions. A research debrief will always be more impactful, vivid and inspiring when it includes a well-crafted video summary.
Mobile online qual generates an embarrassment of riches, in terms of participants’ video content, so it can be overwhelming and time-consuming when you come to edit it all down to a pithy three minutes. These tips will help you to create inspiring video summaries efficiently.
1. Recruit people willing and able to record video
Check that participants are able to record video on their mobiles and that they’re comfortable talking to camera. You also need to tell participants how the video will be used and get their written consent to meet the MRS professional standards and data protection legislation.
2. Coach participants on shooting the best footage
Plan online qual research with the video edit in mind. Practically, you need to ensure that participants know how to film themselves well, e.g. holding the mobile steady, recording in landscape and using the selfie function to ensure they stay in shot. You can advise them to keep clips to under a minute in length so the upload (and editing) time is not too laborious. You can also suggest they get a friend or family member to film them so they can focus on what they have to say.
3. Design research tasks that prompt emotions
Design video tasks that sit at the intersection between emotion and strategic relevance. Think about what will create the most vivid footage and follow your instincts about where the emotion lies. Which aspect of their relationship with the brand, category or behaviour is most moving for them?
Challenge participants to explain how they feel and enable them to share that with you. For example, if you’re asking about DIY, don’t tell them just to take videos of things they’ve done and talk about them. Frame the question to elicit emotion by saying something like, ‘What are you most proud or ashamed of when it comes to your DIY efforts? Show and tell us why.’ Online qual video footage that shows participants’ true emotions is far more insightful and compelling.
4. Share your narrative with your editor early on
The video editor needs to know the story you want to tell in the debrief so that they can create a first edit supporting your narrative. This means working with an editor whom you trust enough to decide which clips are most important. You can also be more prescriptive and give the time codes of clips that you want to be included.
5. Consider using subtitles and captions
To get the audience to focus on your story, consider using captions, which will help them to follow the key points. Also, try phrasing the section headers using the questions that you originally asked people. Making the video feel like a Q&A really helps the flow of the film.
6. Agree refinements with your editor upfront
Make sure you have an agreement for a few edits. Depending on the volume of footage, try getting the video down to ten minutes at first, before refining it down to three, and allow for client feedback – anything longer and people will fall asleep no matter how good it is!
Follow these six tips and your online qual reports will bring participants’ responses to life far more vividly than using written responses alone.
If you’re interested in more ways to achieve online qualitative research excellence, then please join us for the next Masterminds training session. Email tom@feelingmutual.com to find out more.
Find out how mobile video brought insight vividly to life in these case studies…
