I had the pleasure of visiting with some research pals online today, courtesy of E-Qualitative Research.
E-Qual runs something called "Cyber Suite", which is a facility for running live-feed video focus groups or individual interviews.
Here's a couple of screen shots taken during the session:
This is pretty cool stuff. As long as everyone has high-speed, it is very real. We saw some video clips, we talked to each other. We played dress-up with a virtual paper-doll. We used mark-up tools on the whiteboard to show what we liked and didn't like about packaging. When we had no need of the white board, Jack (our helpful host) removed all the other visuals so the pictures could be larger.
The whole thing was recorded. Clients could lurk and watch without being seen, and we were able to see the whole thing again after the session.
Did we have glitches? A few. But surprisingly few, IMHO.
I wondered how many people actually have a camera and mic? Not a problem, as it turns out, since they are inexpensive to buy, and form part of an attractive incentive package for the participants. (Way cool, huh?)
I also loved the idea of using this type of facility for an online meeting, as well as for research purposes.
My only issue: I had to figure out how to surreptitiously disable my camera and mic from time to time so I could slurp coffee without offending my compadres.
I also want to thank Betsy Leichliter who kindly invited me to participate.
