Asking the Right Questions

Being a researcher is not easy. Finding the important and insightful nuggets from research conducted is even harder. All professional researchers encounter situations in in-depth interviews, focus groups and other interactions where they seem to reach a dead end. When in these situations, a good researcher will know how to navigate away from the one word answers to get what they really want from an interviewee or focus group participant: a good story. Here are some examples of how to turn a dead end question into an open-ended one.

Have you ever sent me a text message while driving?

• Tell me about a time you or a friend have texted while driving.
• How do you handle your cell phone when you are driving?

Would you say you travel abroad frequently?

• Where do you like to travel to?
• Can you tell me about a time you've traveled abroad?

Do you post a lot of pictures on Instagram?

• What is the best photo you've posted on Instagram?
• How do you use Instagram on a regular basis?

Do you prefer to shop at big boxes or locally owned stores?

• Where do you usually shop?
• Tell me about your shopping habits and/or routines.

Do you have an iPhone or an Android phone?

• What kind of phone do you have?
• How do you feel about smartphones? Do you have any favorites?

How often do you eat sweets?

• What are your favorite sweets to eat?
• What habits do have when snacking?

Do you tend to buy things on sale?

• Can you tell me about a time you bought something on sale or got a a really good deal?
• Can you tell me about a time you spent too much on something you really wanted?

Of course it seems obvious that in conducting research, one should ask good questions. The more important thing to ask is why is it important to ask the right questions?

It's important to ask the right questions because if you don't, you won't get the answers you need. You may get the answers you want to hear, but necessarily anything that will help you come up with a great idea. If you don't ask the right questions, you could easily miss something that could lead to a good insight. Questions should be geared to get as much information as possible with the lowest risk of confirmation bias which makes open-ended questions ideal for research.

Besides the above-mentioned obvious reason of not getting the answers you will need to gain a good insight from the research, there are other things you may miss in not asking the right questions. For one, you might miss a great story. A really great story that even just one consumer may have could uncover something that other research may have missed. Also, stories are more than just quantitative information. They give the consumer, target audience, brand and even the point of purchase a personality. They can set the tone and add an element of emotion to the research. If you ask a simple yes or no question, you can miss all of these aspects of what you are trying to find. If you don't ask the right questions, you won't get stories. If you don't get stories, you probably won't get a great insight. And if you don't get a great insight, you will encounter a lot of problems in the next step in the process: sparking the creative.