Qualitative research and digital transformation: what’s next?

There are two notable trends in qualitative research currently: digital tools offer a whole range of new options to exploring and understanding, such as access to people’s lives on the go with mobile ethnography, or the ability to stay in touch with participants over the period of days or week with MROCs.

Ethnographies and immersions on the other hand arguably deliver a more contextual sense of how people live their lives, reveal social aspects more clearly, and are culturally richer.

They’re different – complementary.

But what about newer forms of “digital qual”?

How can augmented reality help a mobile ethnography, for example – by encouraging the use of filters, buttons and the like? Or virtual reality – is that an option, doing focus groups with avatars in a virtual room?

Another aspect – how can artificial intelligence help qualitative research cope in a world where results need to be above all fast: what sort of toplines can a machine produce? How do we best profit from, co-operate with “robots”?

We’re hosting a track on precisely these topics at the upcoming GOR 2019, with presentations from

Dr. Michael Björn

…..from Ericsson ConsumerLab on VR and its potential use in qualitative research,

Julia Görnandt

…. on AI in qual, SKIM’s Country Manager for Germany is presenting on how AI helped with a video-based ethnography project, and our very own

Anton Kozka and Sarah Jin

….will be presenting a paper on how augmented reality helped a multi-country mobile study.

Join us in Cologne on Friday 8th March – if you come a few days early, it’s Carnival time, so bring your costume with you!

See you there – or get in touch!