10 minute techniques - 10 minutes to read and understand what they are and when and how to use them. Putting them in practice may take less or more time; some are quick and easy, some require preparation.
Nearly all the techniques are suitable for use in face to face interviewing, workshops and in online research. For online they may need to be adapted to accommodate to the software .e.g. limiting the number of pictures in a collage,so they can fit on the screen.
Please note that there is a whole other set of techniques for workshops to enable people to work together and solve problems in small groups- these will come later.
For now, you have:
(JIM – There is or will be a document in the Dropbox for each of the bullet points.)
- Guidelines for using projective techniques – READ THIS FIRST
- When to use what – only a rough guide because these techniques can be adapted and applied very creatively once you know what they are.
- Analogies, metaphors and similes – to understand one thing in terms of another
- Personification, brand party and brand families – especially useful for understanding brand personality. Bringing brands and organisations to life as people.
- Archetypes (more advanced) and fairy tales
- Completion techniques: bubble drawings and sentence completion. Rely on speed and intuition to bypass the rational filters of the brain.
- Collaging – one of the most useful ways to get new perspectives – ever!
- Brand and product mapping – helps you understand how consumers make distinctions and categorise the market.
- Guided visualisation/ brand room / gestalt – various names for a group of techniques that allow consumers to produce spontaneous images – often at a brand level.
- Laddering – a really powerful one on one technique sometimes called means-end analysis, because it takes you from details, such as product features, into the ends these achieve for the person. Use it with care.
- Obituaries / school reports – fun ways to review brands and organisations
- Psychodrawing – or the less scary free drawing – visual self expression for groups or depths.
- Storytelling and self-scripts – using the power of narrative to understand situations and processes.
- Word association and freelisting – so interesting to do at the start of a project or a group, as it gives you the language and the concepts involved.
- Serious Play – copyrighted by Lego – but really intriguing. Definitley more for long groups or workshops.
