Last week in London we held our first Market Research User Group designed for Market Researchers to come together, network, share ideas and learn more about the Confirmit Horizons platform. We had a great turn out despite the morning’s deluge and spent the day in the beautiful space at the Marylebone Hotel.
Wale Omiyale, head of Confirmit’s global Market Research practice, kicked the day off by sharing his view of the purpose of the event, which included getting feedback from our clients on our latest updates and innovations. Wale also shared Confirmit’s view of the top five digital trends impacting the Market Research industry.
- Voice user interfaces (VUIs): Voice user interfaces (VUIs) allow the user to interact with a system through voice or speech commands. Virtual assistants, such as Alexa and Siri, are common examples of VUIs today. The way users interact with voice user interfaces is very different to graphical ones, so you may quickly find yourself unsure of how to create great user experiences for VUIs.
- Storytelling: From a consumer’s point of view, UX design is no longer a unique selling point, it’s now an expectation. Humans become engrossed in stories and a good story has the power to create empathy with the user. Because more brands seek new and innovative ways to stand out from the rest, we will see a growing trend towards storytelling in UX.
- Wearables: During the past year, we’ve been witnessing the rise of a variety of wearables, from smartwatches to portable devices to monitor the quality of your sleep or your heart rate, for example. And their popularity will just continue to grow in 2019. So, it’s up to the UX designer to optimize the experience of these devices. It’s an appealing space for designers that are intrigued by the idea of working at the intersection of fashion, technology and wellness, which adds that additional layer to the significance of user experience design.
- AI and personalization: With the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, companies now have the opportunity to take a more personalized approach towards customers. AI will not replace UX designers but they can work together to give the user what they want. It’s about matching user information that AI collects with the knowledge of the UX designer. Brands such as Netflix have known to curate content recommendations with their proprietary algorithm. This way, you’ll deliver a great experience based on the preferences, tastes, behaviors and characteristics of your user.
- Feedback: Based on the trends we’ve already spoken about, UX design will continue to be the driver of business success, as more and more companies discover the return of investment when designing great products. The potential for design-driven growth is massive in both product and service-based sectors. In short, a good user experience is clearly good for business. According to a study by Forester, companies who invest in UX, see a lower cost of customer acquisition, lower support cost, increased customer retention and increased market share.
Following the day’s kickoff by Wale, the group split up in two tracks, one focusing on authoring and the other on reporting. Amongst other things, the reporting track focused on speed of report delivery, while maintaining high levels of data quality as well as focusing on the importance of peer to peer access to reports for internal as well as external stakeholders. While the authoring track, in addition to a number of other items, focused on the easy of converting a “Word” document into a Confirmit survey as well as the ability to easily create customized questions.
The remainder of the day was spent walking through recent developments, training on new capabilities and hands on workshops to get comfortable with the new innovations and learn how they can be applied to the MR agencies’ businesses.
The day was capped off with a networking session over a couple of cocktails and canapés. It was a great day and we plan to hold more of these sessions so keep your eyes out for a user group coming to your area in the near future.