Market Research
What do you want to know?
Questionnaires
Can establish the needs of the target audience or assess the effectiveness of design work.
- population/sample
- concise title
- easy to understand questions
- open or closed questions
- multiple choice
- consider hypothesis
- honest answers
- general to particular
- factual to abstract
- leave demographic and personal questions until last.
Focus Groups
Small group of people engaged in conversation about a certain research topic
- population
- sample
- size
- nature of the questions
Group conversation can influence other members
Can’t generalise data if it is a small sample
Interviews
In depth and focused discussion with members of the target audience or professionals, builds a rapport, pre-defined and impromptu questions, qualitative not quantitative.
User / Audience testing
In order to assess the effectiveness of your design work it may be pertinent to test your work on members of the specified target market.
Consider testing perception readability, aesthetic appreciation, perception of quality etc.
Ethics
Ethical considerations should be made when dealing with members of the public especially if the topic is ‘sensitive’. Should data be kept anonymous? Should participants be made aware of the research focus? Should participants have the right to withdraw?
