Loss of opinions can seriously damage your session
One thing I’m often asked when I talk to clients about online market research and virtual advisory boards is “how can we moderate participants more effectively, especially when they’re online?” This is a particularly important point for the following reasons:
- You can often have a particular set of personality profiles in one session
- Being online instead of face-to-face can exacerbate certain behaviors, which are explained below.
- A computer session needs to be varied to keep the participants’ attention
In this article, we will look at the above issues and how simply by using multi-user interactions we can effectively mitigate them and gain a better quality and deeper understanding of the feedback and advice provided by the group.
Is this an important topic?
Yes a lot. When you have a group online, particularly experts in your field, you will find particular personalities that come up again and again. These will include people who are dominant, who can speak first and loudest, and can be quite intimidating to others. Participants who are shy and want to avoid confrontation, not necessarily revealing what they really think. Those who play the Devil’s Advocate, adopting opposing points of view. Experts who are distracted by email or their smartphone. Or people who are preoccupied with something else and never really engage with it. While a good moderator can mitigate these to some extent, the danger is that as the session progresses, some of these factors will remain, negatively affecting the quality of the report.
What is the technique that can help?
We defined the “e-vate capture” paradigm that uses specific interactive sequences at the beginning of each virtual advisory board section to mitigate these issues. A simple example would be a section to discuss how important the manufacturer is to you when choosing to buy a new car. Everyone could be asked the question, but if we show an importance scale interaction for the group, and everyone uses it to express their opinion in isolation, we can pass this information to the moderator or moderator, before starting the discussion. There are a number of advantages to using this technique before a rich qualitative discussion. Everyone divulges an opinion, allowing the moderator/chairman to steer the discussion efficiently, detect subgroups of opinion, manage time efficiently by spending more time on topics where there are key differences, and see if opinions change after the discussion.
How does this affect personalities?
Using this technique, at least at the beginning of each discussion topic, ensures that all opinions have been expressed without dominant characters affecting others, giving those who feel intimidated an equal voice, keeping experts interested. and engaged through activities, and avoiding people with a tendency to play the devil. Advocate for being able to do so since they do not know other opinions when they vote.
Taking interactions further: your ideas
The example above is a simple vote, but there are many other types of interactions that are useful, from drag and drop, timelines, to brainstorming. Have any ideas of interactions you’ve seen work well with live focus groups or advisory panels and wonder how they can be delivered online? Use the link below to view the full article on the online market research advice portal.