Qualitative Case Studies
Qualitative Research
Social Media Behavior Study: Moderating, observation and reporting for a top social media brand developing new features.
Objective: A top social media company wanted to better understand the ways its users interacted with others, and we were tasked with uncovering different kinds of browsing patterns to better understand…
- What prompts people to browse/look up others who they do not know personally? What are the triggers?
- What do they hope to achieve from this?
- What are the different points of entry for browsing within different scenarios?
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Solution: An online bulletin board platform was utilized for 3 days as a means of conversating with participants about their personal browsing behaviors, experiences and motives. Questions and activities were programmed for their participation with real-time moderating to ensure a deep understanding and clear explanation of responses.
Outcome: A robust list of browsing scenarios was revealed and subsequently mapped out in a clear organized way to help the client better understand its users’ behaviors. This informed future site optimizations and marketing initiatives to better accommodate them.
Point-of-Purchase Study: In-store ethnography study that blended quantitative and qualitative data.
Objective: A luxury handbag and apparel company wanted to understand the opinions and drivers of their customer across North America after launching a new product line, to determine:
- Whether changes were being noticed, in which product areas and to what extent
- How changes may or may not be impacting their purchasing decisions
- What is driving them into the store
The end goal was to provide a gut-check as well as strategic guidance to product and style development teams on how to optimize and showcase products to best meet customer wants and needs and lead to more purchase conversions.
Solution: A quantitative ethnography study was employed across 5 stores, via exit interviews and in-store observations, which gauged opinions and motives behind buyers and browsers through multiple choice and open-ended voice-captured questions.
Outcome: The study quantified changes noticed at an aggregate and product-level, and further analyzed to determine how changes were impacting their opinion of the brand and decision/likelihood to purchase. Specific product-level feedback was uncovered that provided designers feedback to inform future design strategy.
In-Store Shopalong Study: Unpacking the shopper experience and decision-making of parents purchasing toys for their children.
Objective: A leading toy company wanted to understand the decision-making process and nuances involved in the way parents shop for toys for their children, and how the decision-making process varied across different types of toys, occasions (birthday vs. general etc.), types of retailers (e.g. mass merchandise stores vs. toy stores etc.) and when the parent is shopping alone vs. with their children present
Solution: One-on-one shopalongs were conducted in different store environments, some with parents alone and some with their children present. A one-hour interview was conducted while parents took the ethnographer through a typical shopping journey that mimicked a realistic shopping occasion.
Outcome: The interviews uncovered the nuanced decision-making process parents go through when deciding what type of toy or game to get their child, for instance:
- information they look for on the box as it pertains to age, instructions, price, perceived level of fun
- Whether it was something the child could play alone or with others etc.
- How the toy is visually displayed in the box (e.g. a doll with a semi-transparent box was questionable as to what types of moving or small parts might be present, which was important for parents with small children)
