Upgrade from paper with Quirkos
Having been round many market research firms in the last few months, the most striking things is the piles of paper, or at least in the neater offices - shelves of paper! When we talk to small market research firms about their analysis process
Having been round many market research firms in the last few months, the most striking things is the piles of paper, or at least in the neater offices - shelves of paper!
When we talk to small market research firms about their analysis process, many are doing most of their research by printing out data and transcripts, and coding them with coloured highlighters. Some are adamant that this is the way that works best for them, but others are a little embarrassed at the way they are still using so much time and paper with physical methods.
The challenge is clear – the short turn-around time demanded by clients doesn't leave much time for experimenting with new ways of working, and the few we had talked to who had tried qualitative analysis software quickly felt this wasn't something they were able to pick up quickly.
So, most of the small Market Research agencies with less than 5 associates (as many as 75% of firms in the UK) are still relying on work-flows that are difficult to share, don't allow for searching across work, and don't have an undo button! Not to mention the ecological impact of all that printing, and the risk to deadlines from an ill placed mug of coffee.
That's one of the reasons we created Quirkos, and why we are launching our new campaign this week at the Market Research Society annual conference in London. Just go to our new website, www.upgradefrompaper.com and watch our fun, one minute video about drowning in paper, and how Quirkos can help.
Quirkos isn't like other software, it is designed to mimic the physical action of highlighting and coding text on paper with an intuitive interface that you can use to get coding right away. In fact, we bet you can get coding a project before your printer has got the first source out of the tray.
You no longer need days of training to use qualitative analysis software, and Quirkos has all the advantages you'd expect, such as quick searches, full undo-redo capability and lots of flexibility to rearrange your data and framework. But it also has other pleasant surprises: there's no save button, because work is automatically saved after each action. And it creates graphical reports you can share with colleagues or clients.
Finally, you can export your work at any stage to Word, and print it out (if you so wish!) with all your coding and annotations as familiar coloured highlights – ideal to share, or just to help ease the transition to digital. It's always comforting to know you can go back to old habits at any time, and not loose the work you've already done!
It's obviously not just for market research firms; students, academics and charities who have either not tried any qualitative software before, or found the other options too confusing or expensive can reduce their carbon footprint and save on their department's printing costs!
So take the leap, and try it out for a month, completely free, on us. Upgrade from paper to Quirkos, and get a clear picture of your research!
p.s. All the drawings in our video were done by our very own Kristin Schroeder! Not bad, eh?