Personal devices that read our emotional states will need thorough concept and product testing in order to meet our needs

India has a thriving tech industry that out performs Silicon Valley. So when they make announcements like this, 'Artificial Intelligence-powered devices to read users' emotional state, says research by Gartner', then it really gives me pause. 
 
First off. It's mind blowing that personal devices might soon be able to read our facial expressions, pick up tonality in our voice, and interpret our behaviour. But it also makes me think about implications for concept and product testing and knowing the difference between them. 

Have to give a shout out to Jared Spool ​over at UIE for his recent blog post about the Net Promoter Score. 

Even though the NPS metric has been debunked there are many businesses still using it.

Jared's post is nicely detailed for anyone looking to educate themselves about the issues associated with using NPS. 

Some people say it's wrong to be involved in an industry like market research that supports 'mindless, rampant consumerism'. Those sorts of comments used to make me feel bad about myself. I struggled to defend myself but it was hard. After all I helped launch many successful supermarket products and improve many a service offering, all designed to make people buy more and spend more. It made me think, 'shouldn't I be using my skills to improve the world?'

How do consumers make purchase decisions? What really matters to them when they buy? What leads them to choose one brand or product over another, particularly in competitive markets? After having done consumer research in all sorts of markets for all sorts of clients, I see the same answers time and time again. Everything consumers say drives their choices and everything they do can be classified into one of 4 areas - Price, Product, Customer Service, and Brand (image and reputation). Everything.

Research has found that consumer beliefs about human personality also translate to their beliefs about brand personality. Unfortunately this means there will be a subset of consumers who hold conflicting opinions about parent brands extending into new products or services. So what should brand managers do about it? 

Research with consumers is a process designed to help brand managers reduce confusion, indecision and subjectivity in managing their brand. But as it turns out, there's a group of consumers destined to keep brand managers perplexed (or tearing out their hair) over their conflicting opinions toward brands.

Trying to decide your qualitative sample size can be a tricky. In academic circles researchers say that you stop interviewing when you start hearing the same stories. Unfortunately commercial researchers don't have that luxury. They need to plan and cost for sample sizes ahead of fieldwork and given how costly qualitative fieldwork can be, getting the sampling right can mean the difference between a project being commissioned or being passed over. 

In the whitepaper below, Donna outlines how market researchers can judge ahead of time how many interviews they will need in order to get reliable and valid results.  

​Download your copy of the whitepaper - Qualitative Interviews: When enough is enough.

Whenever I'm struggling to design a market research presentation I can get inspiration from Nancy Duarte and her team. Her book, presentations and blog never fail to trigger a better way for me to represent data or findings.

I think one of the hardest things I have to do as researcher is to turn data and research findings into a compelling story.