If you're into technology, working at Evolve is a bit of a dream. Like most of you, our day-to-day involves a lot of digital (or digitally powered) communication with the usual suspects like Slack, Zoom, and Asana. But, we also get to play with much dedicated research-related tech and methodologies that add oodles of value to our projects. 

This Friday and next Friday, each of us will dive into our favorite research-related tools and techniques. 

Today, Brinkley and Stew dive into the tools they like working with most.

Brinkley

Favorite Tech: Q Software

I like Q Software because you get to dive into the data and actually see more than just the base numbers from a survey. You start to see what stands out from the rest of the data and what essential details can be turned into actionable recommendations for the client. 

Using Q to look at the data by cross-tabulating demographics is fascinating. Everyone is unique and has very different life experiences that shape their opinions. However, when it comes to quantitative research, you have such a significant sample that you can still discover a demographic group's overall inclination on almost any given topic. 

Q plays a crucial role in helping me inform our clients on how to better understand and serve their target audience.

Stew

Favorite Technique: MaxDiff (AKA Best-Worst Scaling)

I'm a massive fan of MaxDiff because it forces respondents to make trade-offs when comparing options, choosing the best and worst option out of each set. Each option is displayed a certain number of times during the exercise, pitted against a different set of options each time it's displayed. 

The result is a preference of share output ranking the relative appeal of each option. On the surface, it's essentially a sophisticated ranking exercise. Still, it eliminates much of the bias of a traditional ranking question since each option is displayed several times and compared against different sets. 

The real power of MaxDiff comes when you dig deeper into the data and perform a Latent Class Analysis. This shows us how different options resonate with varying subsets of the population. Using MaxDiff and LCA in conjunction gives us a well-rounded view of the population and makes more targeted recommendations to our clients.