Methods in Focus
Our Range of Research Methods
Our Approach: Holistic, Systematic, Morphological System + Methodology
Public Perception is a professional qualitative-based agency for client-based national and international research. Our projects follow academic sound, practice proven and modern psychological methods.
Inter-disciplinary collaboration for holistic outcomes
With the increasing complexity interweaving our life, converging various research methods is giving a project a wide starting capital. With the shift from “representative” to “relevance” of insights and the variety of new technologies depicting and using the changes of digital living, qualitative, quantitative, offline or online methods are getting combined as best for the genuine business objectives, often favoring inter-disciplinary and holistic strategies.
Collaboration joining methods is like “task force” project specialists.
Building on qualitative, our work has evolved into working in a multi discipline and modular platform approach in cooperation with specialised partners. Usually we are the managing lead agency with our partners for field, quantitative methods and online platforms. Our unique expertise area is all analysing of materials and reporting allowing converging figures, images and insights to a consistent and big picture outcome.
Qualitative research – the psychological sense-making frame of reference
Psychological Morphology is the key to understanding the intricate, multi-layered sense-making motivational logic driving human experiences, emotions and behaviours.
Qualitative, especially its ethnographic approach allows for authentic content and in-depth personal interactions and the socio-cultural contexts to a project.
The crucial point with psychology however is that face value can be right or it can be deceiving as our inner life overall is being governed by patterns and motives widely unconscious to us with only part of them in conscious awareness and reach. “Depth” means exploring, analyzing and integrating determining contexts, ranging from conscious to non-conscious and individual ecosystems, to social and cultural backgrounds.
What people say or do sums up to a face-value symptom trail, but how to weigh and fit it all together to a big sense-making picture is the main work task. Systematic work of any discipline requires a theory model for phenomena taxonomy, placing insights as logical derivations into energy and power fields or “impact units” as the meta-level principles. Psychological Morphology is such an applied system, and literally means “logic of formation and change”, which resonates a current theme.
In-Depth Morphological Interviews
The professional direct „face-to-face“ interview still is valued as a core research element and a core experience for the participant, as well, if it touches profound points. Such an exchange – especially about illnesses and life – is quite an existential thing. To talk about the very private things with a stranger always associates a cathartic effect: To reflect and talk about oneself, guided and within a protected frame, noticing the flow of self exploring, stopping, blocking, opening up. These are cornerstones within the dynamic of the in-depth-interview.
In-depth interviews provide a protected space creating a special transference ambiance. This allows participants to step-wise unfold and discover their experiences and emotions with the issue.
Along the felt logic of physical presence: A professional moderator is also a resonance tool for perceiving the atmospheric and physical interaction course and feeding it back as part of the process and outcomes. Physical appearance, behavior, mimic, gestures, undertone story and process style are part of the learning about the issue. Getting so close is why productive interviews remain demanding, also physically. They are a collaborative work piece.
Our interviews go beyond the standard in-depth interview, as it is hypothesis-driven, lifting the different levels from storytelling (such as typical routines, preferences), to tensions and conflicts, the embedded reasons of why someone prefers to live and to do things the way they do, which we can follow and uncover from the joined journey of the interview process itself.
Story Telling
Storytelling integrates a main research road and life’s natural fabric weaving.
What people are telling are their stories. Stories are our framework to understand and communicate, to create meaning and bridge gaps and contradictions. . Stories are the connecting threads to people’s life and motivations. But they are also the endpoints, fabrications of long and unconscious coping processes which to unravel assesses their genuine logic. Extracting from stories their relevant impacts will then assess to discerning prototypical patterns and tensions within the story complexes.
Morphological Ethnography
Ethnography and especially in digital media format has emerged to a logical counterpart to consumers mobile and online life. Accompanying consumers in their concrete, relevant contexts such as purchase, usage, shopping or at home observing, sharing and probing gives the fullest, most authentic picture of their ecosystem.
Immersive online and mobile methods are chosen depending on the project objectives and the reachability of target groups. With respect to the “connected” living they also allow insights into the ease of use and communication structure people are choosing.
Creative and Projective Tools
But: Working with them in groups digs up a mixed input. And it depends on the business area and its complexity or legal regulations, such as in automotive or healthcare.
Users can frame the future from their today’s needs and experience standpoint, which makes future a logical extension of today, and not a disruptive one. And they also can come up with ideas outside the box contributing relevant innovation concepts. Based on a usage motivation matrix, research needs to filter out lasting from passing needs and fads.
But users don’t necessarily want (again) what they have or know. Which is one of the shortcuts of the “minimum viable product”. Innovation does not equate to needs-based extension. Innovation is disruptive to feel new and different and fun.
User-centricity: consumer experience and benefit approach
Companies increasingly focus on developing products and services upgrading the users, their product usage experiences and benefits to the center of developments and concerns. With social media and relationship values users are emancipating to active contributors or critical communities to the early product development process. Who uses can tell what counts and what is useful and desirable to have. So including typical users, lead users and communities into the development and innovation process is an established way of company-customers relationships. Product development and design appreciate those processes, they participate themselves or integrate a more design thinking process into their work processes. Constructive research is not bypassing design or blocking out creativity. It sets free processes inherent to the issues, creates an atmospheric getting into things which co-enables agencies and designers their creative disruptive concept developing. And it can visualize the impact processes triggered by concept inputs with users.
User innovation groups and workshops
Innovation workshops with users need careful planning and validation. With needs and motivations pre-assessed, workshop techniques and flow can be scripted in advance allowing probing during the process the different dimensions involved.
Workshops, style, length with clients, designers or with designers sketching out the ideas in “status nascendi” is concept planning.
Role Playing
Refer to innovating and being playful as being close relatives. Playing, building, developing are the natural growing up modes often unfolding beyond the conventional subject object split and preset purposefulness. Being playful can be a joyful experience in itself, beyond conventions, self-driven, not result-oriented and guided by the process logic of doing something with something, and together. Playing brings people closer to the relationship mode, to being self-forgotten, “outside themselves”. Its’ magic stems from becoming more the process that is inherent in every purchase decision and usage routines.
Playing Techniques
Self-triggering and freeing from being overly precautious or considered regarding all the possible pros and cons of a statement and ones own position in the situation. Role playing esp. with basic devices like masks and role tags visualizes and typecasts characters and product issues, and they help gaining distance to oneself, while becoming more aware of the impact of each of them.
Online Tools
With digital living as an all encompassing mode, online methodology is the natural method expansion. With consumers as well as with clients. It’s the daily life communication platform mode. Efficiency is a major consideration: in project time, in reaching the target audience and also potentially in budget savings.
Different from the “offline” exploration is the processing style: They way participants go about it without the direct or physical moderator presence, the mutual exchange with others, and so on. In terms of the objectives, the natural environment in terms of atmosphere and project input, own timing and mood are supporting a vital exchange and richer and colorful results. The individual feedback might be more biased and limited by habits and viewpoints, but it tends to be spontaneous and sincere, following an “un-observed” mind-walking process, which might bypass classic research “framing” setting.
From within, the informative and creative potential presents a milestone in getting closer – in results and from person to person.
Are very resourceful, with community participants inspiring each other, interacting, going back and forth, finding more details, rethinking and so. It’s much more life-analogous energizing and crafting, with more time, more engrained in the living, the materials, the getting familiar, and so on.
Quantitative – best practice in teamwork
Working from our qualitative in-depth psychological concept base proceeding with quantitative methods is matched to each individual project’s needs.
Quantitative data are as important as are qualitative insights. Data aggregation unveils the gravity, but for structural explanations, it’s lacking the key for the motivational drivers and sense-making impact contexts fueling the figures.
To design quantitative strategies and questionnaires has proven to be an added core competency from our high level psychological understanding of the human dynamics and inherent contradictions.
