Qualitative research is interactive. The more clients participate in the process and the progress of the work, the more valuable its outcome will be.

Qualitative research lets consumers describe their own experiences and feelings. Where words fail, we come up with the tools and techniques to enable consumers to express themselves in as rich a manner as possible-in multiple dimensions, unfiltered by predetermined rules, industry lingo or categories.

Qualitative research implies an exploratory, curious, and probing interview. It involves both direct questioning and more indirect forms of inquiry to get at hard-to-articulate topics or feelings.

Our experience is especially valuable in matching interviewing approaches and techniques to the issues and problems clients bring to us. We can consult with you on:

• When to do groups, mini-groups, triads, or individual in-depth interviews (IDI’s)
• When to consider in-depth interviewing by phone as opposed to in-person
• When to consider ethnographic approaches

We consider Web-based qualitative interviews to be a completely separate tool, appropriate and useful in certain circumstances, but definitely not a substitute for in-person interviewing.

Some of our most productive qualitative techniques include:

• Projectives (a wide variety of exercises involving indirect questioning)
• House of Quality (an adaptation appropriate for the focus group setting)
• Collage research
• "Homework" assignments before the group meets (diaries, photo journals, store visits, etc.)
• Tandem team interviewing (two moderators with distinctly separate roles)
• Champion interviewing (combining equal numbers of proponents of different brands in the category in the same group)