Mobile interviewing: the platforms favoured by software providers

Early findings from some new research among mobile interviewing software providers, carried out by meaning, and presented in a short course at AAPOR yesterday show that developers are favouring the newer mobile platforms when creating mobile survey tools.

The short course was co-presented by Mario Callegaro, research strategist at Google Inc., and Tim Macer, MD of meaning ltd at the American Association for Public Opinion Research in Phoenix Arizona.

A key finding is that all developers surveyed supported Apple’s iOS for iPhone and iPad, BlackBerry, Google’s Android, and Windows mobile for web-browser enabled interviewing, but that only iOS was supported by all the firms in the survey for mobile Apps. Support for Symbian was highly selective, and the older format XHTML for smart phones was  also restricted to a few.

The research is ongoing, and more results will be available in due course.

See the mobile platforms supported by eight key vendors of mobile interviewing software.

2010 Market Research Software Survey results released

50 pages of charts, tables, analysis and insights await you in the 2010 report

Results of the seventh annual software survey conducted by meaning ltd, the 2010 Globalpark Market Research Software Survey, are now available. This unique survey provides both a snapshot of where the market research profession is with regard to its technology, and also, by looking across all the years of the survey, reveals some longer-term trends in how technology is being used.

Highlights of the 2010 study include new questions on social media research and the methods used to collect and also to analyse this kind of data; on survey routers used to optimise online samples, and on testing strategies commonly applied to online surveys. There are some interesting revelations about the extent to which market research is turning to other data sources as a source of insight, beyond the conventional survey, and some surprising regional variations exposed on this and several other questions too. Some fascinating longer-term trends are appearing in the areas of interviewing modes, sample use, research data reporting and delivery methods.

Based on a 15-minute online interview with senior executives in 213 market research companies worldwide, this a truly global study. It is sampled in such a way as to mirror the relative size of market research activities in different countries, and  this year, some 30 different countries are represented.

Use the link below to download the 2010 report, free of charge.

Beyond PowerPoint

Detail from Tim Macer's ASC 2010 presentation

While detractors have been denouncing PowerPoint as a vehicle for presenting research results for several years now, MR seems to be as wedded to it now as at any time in the past. It’s a topic Tim Macer, MD of meaning ltd explored at the  ASC conference in London “Putting the Pizzazz into Research: renewing the rules of engagement“, in the event’s closing talk “It doesn’t have to be PowerPoint”. In the presentation, Tim observed that PowerPoint is a provided as a client deliverable on 54% of research projects, and examined some of the problems that critics have identified in the use of PowerPoint. He then offered six “antidotes to PowerPoint.

Tim introduced these by explaining: “These are my subjective pick of software products I have seen over the past year where I’ve seen providers offering something that is useful and different in this area. ” Tim’s presentation was given with the aid of  one of the featured tools – Prezi – a new and quite ground-breaking presentation tool.