All About Revelation Mobile

By: Elizabeth MacLaughlin, Client Services Manager

I recently hosted a mini-webinar to demonstrate the functionality of our Revelation Mobile App and discuss best practices in using mobile technology to capture in-the-moment data.

Here is a link to the recorded webinar and a PDF of the presentation, please click here.

Also, don't miss out on the follow-up webinar: Revelation Mobile Case Study. Click here to view the recording or download the presentation.

There were so many great questions that a few of them didn’t get answered. So, I put together the following Q&A series:

A: The Revelation App currently is supported on:

• iPhone Apple iOS 3.1.3 or later

• Android 1.6 (Donut) or later

• iPad 1 and 2 (keep in mind that iPad 1 does not have photo-taking capability)

Other mobile smartphone and tablet devices are not yet supported.

A: Currently, if a text pops up while the participant is in the middle of answering an activity on their Mobile device, they can either continue the activity and finish (submit) it before looking at their text…or they can click away from the Revelation App to view their text (or answer their phone, or anything else that might distract them from their in-the-moment responses), in which case their responses will be lost when they return to the Revelation App.

This is why we recommend structuring mobile activities to be short, and recurring. That way the activity is continually available to the participant so they can easily return to it and answer questions, and if they do happen to lose a few responses, they can re-enter data quickly and easily.

A: Revelation Mobile functions as an asynchronous tool, and researcher follow-up probes only show up on the desktop interface. Therefore there will be some time between the participant responds to his/her in-the-moment activity and when they see and respond to follow-up probes.

Utilizing the “Record, then Reflect” Immersive practice is most effective for our tool, which allows participants to capture their in-the-moment documentaries on their mobile device with short texts and photo responses, and then to elaborate later from home with more reflective detail.

A: On the Revelation Platform, the participant must first login to the online study from their desktop and create a password. Only after doing so are they able to use the Revelation App to access their Mobile activities. So to some extent, a desktop is currently required.

In addition, there are currently certain functionalities, such as ability to see and respond to probes; and certain activity types, such as an activity requesting video or a discussion activity, that are only available using a desktop computer.

On the whole, layering mobile activities in with non-mobile activities provides more rich data. However, if your goal is to run a study to collect primarily short, in the moment, response capture, you can certainly tailor a study that guides participants to primarily use their mobile devices to enter data. Just keep in mind that they potentially can respond to questions from their desktop as well, so setting participant study guidelines will be paramount.

A: Certainly! Our example for the webinar was a consumer shopping experience study, but one could use the same methods to capture B2B data, such as in the moment feedback from a tradeshow, conference or marketing event.