Research guides: Entrepreneurship & Innovation: Conducting Your Own Market Research

Interviews

Interviews are used to capture important information about users, like their backgrounds, beliefs, and motivations. Typically you would interview one individual at a time.

Conducting Qualitative Interviews
From the book Research Methods for the Social Sciences: An Introduction. Provides tips on creating your interview guide.
Planning an Interview Study
From the book Doing Interviews by Steinar Kvale. Available through the Library's subscription to Sage Research Methods.
Conducting an Interview
From the book Doing Interviews by Steinar Kvale. Available through the Library's subscription to Sage Research Methods.
Writing an Effective Guide for a UX Interview
Preparing a guide for a user interview ensures that topics relevant to your research questions are covered, and that the interview captures in-depth information about people’s lives and needs.

Focus Groups

Designing and Conducting Focus Group Interviews
A guide on creating and conducting successful focus groups, from moderator skills to basic structure of the interview.

Designing and Conducting the Focus Group
From the book Focus Groups by David W. Stewart, Prem N. Shamdasani & Dennis W. Rook. Available through the Library's subscription to Sage Research Methods.

Surveys

Surveys are a good tool to consider if you want to collect information from a large group of people: they can be more efficient than interviews or focus groups. While surveys are most commonly used to collect quantitative data, they can collect some qualitative data if designed correctly.

Designing and Doing Survey Research
Describes the process of designing and conducting a survey, including developing questions and preparing for analysis.
Doing Surveys Online
Book available through the Library's subscription to Sage Research Methods.