Why use qualitative research platforms over WhatsApp?

For researchers operating with limited budgets, WhatsApp can seem like a quick and easy tool to gather qualitative data. After all, it’s widely used, familiar to most participants already, and it's free. But are these false economies? Will they undermine the insights you're delivering? Let's look into the pros and cons in more detail.

Advantages of WhatsApp for Qualitative Research

Lower Direct Cost

One of the biggest downsides of purpose-built qual platforms is the cost. They typically require a usage or subscription fee, and these can be expensive. This is especially true of insight community platforms, which can be far out of budget for smaller research projects. Platforms like Liveminds, which focus on smaller projects, do make them much more accessible.

WhatsApp, on the other hand, is entirely free to both download and use. However, there is definitely a significant time cost introduced too.

Removing the Learning Curve

Using a new platform always requires some degree of adaptation, both for researchers and participants. This is especially true for:

• Insight community platforms with extra features designed to try and keep participants engaged on a long term basis
• All in one platforms that cater for one to one interviews, live focus groups, and insight communities, as well as short term qual projects.

People can find it more difficult to navigate a new interface, which can slow down the research process. Platforms like Liveminds are simple by design, enabling participants of any age and technical ability to engage immediately. However, WhatsApp’s familiarity could make it easier for some participants to grasp, than would be the case with more complex qualitative platforms.

Advantages of Qualitative Research Platforms

Next let’s have a look at the advantages of using purpose-built qual platforms over WhatsApp. Dedicated qualitative research platforms offer a range of features that WhatsApp doesn't have and are unlikely ever to. Platforms like Liveminds, Recollective and Incling are designed from the ground up for research. As we'll see, ultimately this makes them much better suited to get high quality data, significantly streamline project management, and improve both the researcher and participant experience.

Fully Automated Project Management

Managing research projects can be a very time-consuming task when using WhatsApp. Qualitative research platforms are designed to simplify the process through advanced automation features.

• Sending personalised updates: Users get notifications about new questions, new tasks, new comments, and reminders about outstanding tasks. This means less manual checking and more time for strategic thinking.
• Showing you what to do next: Qualitative research platforms offer dashboards that direct you to the new responses, so you know what needs attention immediately.
• Instant view of participant progress: You can quickly see who has completed tasks and who might need a nudge to respond. This eliminates the need to manually track responses, saving you hours.
• Multilingual video transcription: With video transcription, you don’t have to watch every single video all the way through to find key insights. Transcripts allow you to quickly scan for relevant information, saving significant time.
• Bulk exporting of videos and images: Instead of laboriously downloading each file individually, you can export all the participants' neatly organised media content in one click, for easy access for your report.
• Give access to recruiters: Recruiters can log in to see participants real-time progress, identify which participants need chasing, enabling you to focus entirely on the research and the project run more smoothly.

Save Huge Amounts of Time on Analysis

When it comes to analysing qualitative data, WhatsApp doesn't provides any tools to help with this process. Purpose-built qual platforms, however, are packed with features that accelerate analysis and improve its depth.

• AI Summaries of key yhemes: With AI-powered tools, you can quickly generate summaries of the most important themes across participants’ responses, which saves you from manually reading through every message.
• Highlighted verbatims: Some of these platforms can automatically highlight key quotes (verbatims) that support each theme, making it easy to extract and present them to clients.
• Compare responses across groups: Instantly compare responses between different groups to the same questions. This feature gives you a clearer understanding of contrasting perspectives without having to cross-reference messages manually across chats.
• Custom tagging of content: Tag specific pieces of content or responses with custom labels that you can use later in analysis. This helps organize your data better for faster retrieval.
• Export transcripts for further analysis: Output the raw or filtered data in formats like Word or Excel, or integrate with specialised tools like CoLoop for more detailed analysis. This can save you considerable time and effort.

Improving Data Quality

Quality data is the basis of good research, and using WhatsApp can compromise this.

• Limited participant contribution: WhatsApp users are accustomed to short, quick communications. This means that without lots of time-consuming probing, participants can give short and incomplete answers. Qual platforms, on the other hand, often encourage more thoughtful, detailed responses with structured prompts.

• Video compression issues: WhatsApp automatically compresses video files, which results in lower-quality videos that can be a big problem when you want to present them to clients. Dedicated qual platforms keep high definition files for use in presentations.

More Control Over Project Design

WhatsApp only gives limited flexibility when it comes to structuring research discussions, while purpose-built platforms allow you to tailor them your project’s design.

• Flexible conversation structures: Whether you need private one-on-one interactions, group discussions, or cross-group debates, purpose-built platforms offer much greater flexibility in structuring these, helping you get the best insights from each activity.

• Control over stimulus presentation: You have full control over how stimulus (such as videos or images) is presented, ordered and when it's revealed. This ensures you will get honest and unbiased responses.

Enhancing Privacy and Security

Privacy and security are often critical to research buyers, but WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, retains ownership of any data sent through its app. This is not ideal for research projects involving sensitive information and can be a dealbreaker.

• Full data ownership: With purpose-built qual platforms, you or your client own the data, not Meta. This provides greater control over who has access to participant responses and ensures full compliance with data protection regulations.

• Limited participant access to datad: On purpose-built platforms, you can restrict participants access to the research conversations after the fieldwork has ended, adding another important layer of privacy to your research.

• Client access for observation: You can give your client access to observe and input on the research process without compromising the privacy or structure of the project.

Improving the Participant Experience

While WhatsApp is familiar to users, it’s not designed with research in mind, which can lead to a frustrating participant experience.

• Struggling with large files: Participants may have difficulty uploading larger video files, and WhatsApp’s chat structure can make it hard for them to find the correct discussion thread. This can cause confusion and delays.

• Distractions: WhatsApp is used for multiple purposes in participants’ daily lives, so it’s easy for them to get distracted or disengaged from your research project. As anyone who uses social networks will know all too well! Qualitative research platforms create a focused environment dedicated to each task, making it easier for participants to get and then stay engaged.

Conclusion

While WhatsApp may seem like a quick and familiar tool for online qualitative research, it falls short in providing the control, efficiency, and data quality that purpose-built platforms offer. These specialised qual platforms not only save time and cost but also deliver better insights through superior data quality, more flexible project designs, and also enhanced security. By investing in the right platform, you can make your research process far smoother, more reliable, and ultimately, more impactful.