Are You Sitting Comfortably ?

Abstract

IT systems should be accurate, reliable, efficient and comfortable to use. The first three are essential, the last, comfort, a useful bonus. With some systems, however, “comfort/ease of use” is paramount: information gathering, for instance, where the users’ view is restricted to their interaction with the input mechanism. In market research, respondents are involved via exposure to some form of interview. Their participation, and the quality of the information obtained, relies on their task being perceived as relevant, straightforward, well managed, comfortable. This paper illustrates Taylor Nelson approaches that ensure data quality through respondent comfort. Current surveys for TV audience, grocery measurement and quality of mail services are described; so too is recent development work using automated speech recognition to conduct telephone interviews without an interviewer.