Covid-19: thoughts from a room in Battersea…

Posted by Lyn McGregor on the 25th March, 2020
I’m proud to lead a team of creative researchers who are agile and embrace change. We are learning all the time. We believe strongly in collaboration, and we are obsessed with delivering results to the highest standards for our clients.

We’ve all just been part of a week of change. Working from home presents new challenges, especially when we are doing it at the same time. Most people I’ve spoken to have spent a lot of time on calls and meetings online, connecting with colleagues and clients, as we adapt our research approaches to fit with the new world order.

At Walnut we have been busy advising clients on how to we can move face-to-face qualitative projects online. Now our clients are consulting us about important and urgent strategic projects that they want to do in the weeks ahead.

The Walnut Qual team has considerable experience of research online. We use our human understanding to engage participants and get our clients the richest possible insight. We thought it might be helpful to describe some of the things we’ve learned along the way. Today, we thought we’d talk about our distinctive approach to online communities.

We’ve just finished a transformational study on behavioural change for IGD designed to encourage healthy and sustainable eating. This project began with a 7-day online community to explore behaviour across different target audiences. The key here is to ensure participants are highly engaged, but more than that our design involves our behavioural science thinking, ensuring a depth of understanding that amazed our clients! The subsequent online survey employed Reaction Time Testing to explore the emotional engagement with a wide range of initiatives.

As with all great research, the secret is not about the use of an online platform, but the human researchers and their wonderful creative thinking! Our team of researchers have extensive experience of online communities across a range of sectors.

Maybe you are thinking a community isn’t what you need for your project? That’s okay too! We can do great interviews with families, individuals, pairs, triads and quads online! We even have an approach for a virtual workshop, so you can kick off your project involving your colleagues and share the thinking along the way.

I’m proud to lead a team of creative researchers who are agile and embrace change. We are learning all the time. We believe strongly in collaboration, and we are obsessed with delivering results to the highest standards for our clients. Please get in touch if you’d like to bounce ideas around on your next project. We’re here to help. We’d love to help.

Meet the Author: Lyn McGregor
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