Kicking off a project with a "Getting To Know You" activity is the most effective way to get a project off to a great start.

"Getting to Know You" activities serve several different purposes in a project. First, they enable you to learn a little more about each participant – home, family, hobbies and interests – in an easy warm up activity. This first activity is the participant’s first interaction in the project and provides a 'low risk' assignment that enables the researcher and technical support team to help participants address any technical issues. Second, showing a video or photo of the research team is beneficial and can really set a great atmosphere by showing there’s a real person on the other end of the line. And lastly, the researcher can use this first activity as a low effort 'first touch' with participants. Researchers don’t need to spend much time analyzing any data from the activity and can quickly acknowledge that they’ve read the participant’s answers and welcome them to the project.

In this activity participants are asked to answer a few open-ended questions and post photos. These photos could be of their family, home, friends–basically, photos of people, places and things that are important to them. I would encourage you to share a bit about yourself here – either a photo or introductory video. Here's an example "Getting To Know You" exercise taken from a past Revelation project. We introduced the activity this way:

I'd like to start off by learning a little about you. What do you do during the day? What are your hobbies? And what does a typical weekend look like for you?

Tell me about the other people and pets who live with you.

I'd like to get to know your environment a little better as well. Please upload photos of you and your home and any photos of family members, friends and pets you think would help me get to know you better. Anything else you'd like to add that would help me get to know you better?

Personal motto, favorite coffee drink...anything that you'd like to add? Thanks!