The blog post below has been written by Karen Ward of Curiosity Inc.  Karen is going to be presenting the topic below in our Great Research Thinking webinar tomorrow, July 28.

Blended Reality Research^TM: Bringing Online and Real World Methods Together for Insight and Innovation

We’ve been working and learning with Revelation and a variety of other online research platforms over the past 5 years.  This surprises some of our clients who know us as a research and innovation company that is positively evangelistic about the power and importance of in-context, ethnographic research. 

However, as our lived experiences as individuals are becoming more “blended”, so too must our research methods and tools as practitioners.  And with the dramatic improvement of online platforms and digital capture tools, there has never been a better time to embrace what we call Blended Reality Research. 

In the early days of our online research adventures, we primarily used online platforms like Revelation to administer “online homework” assignments leading up to our ethnographic field visits, thus replacing the physical homework assignments that we would previously send out to our participants. 

This worked well as it gave us an opportunity to review and probe the responses to the online homework in advance of our ethnographic work, which made for much richer learning once we got in field.  It also gave us the opportunity to build rapport with participants before we met them in person and that led to more openness and intimacy.

In the spirit of full disclosure, it must be said that while we had early success with online platforms, we also made a lot of mistakes.  The most significant of the many was trying replicate what we were used to doing in a analog way in an online, digital environment.  We did a lot of “failing forward” as we figured out how to best leverage what digital tools and online platforms made possible.

As a result of our ongoing experimentation with online tools and unwavering commitment to in-context discovery, we developed an approach and practice called Blended Reality Research (BRR).  And on many levels, it’s as simple as it sounds.  BRR weaves together digital learning platforms and tools with context-based discovery, collaboration and co-creation in physical environments.  When we are designing a Blended Reality Research project, we ask ourselves 2 key questions:

1.  What can we get participants to do for us and report back on digitally?

2.  What would we like to do with them in context?

As much of our project work involves the development of new product and service concepts, we like to do mapping and sketching work with participants to help us understand event sequences, emotional journeys and relationships between objects, systems, etc.  We still find that this kind of discovery and co-creation work is best done with low-tech tools like Sharpie markers and some of our paper-based tools in a physical environment.  Similarly, a 3-hour in-context discovery session with 6-8 people is not a substitute for a national, 2-week online study where you have deep and daily contact with a larger group of participants. 

For us, it’s not a question of online or in-context.  The richest insight and innovation opportunities are surfaced when we take an integrated or “blended” approach to designing research and concepting projects.  When we think deeply about what the various online and offline tools and methods in our kit can bring to a project, our learning and the experience we provide to our participants and clients gets better.

If you’d like to know more about our Blended Reality Research approach and how it comes to life in practice, please join us for our webinar on July 28 at 12:00pm ET/9:00am PT.

By Karen Ward, Curiosity Inc