EthOS project manager’s checklist – this is not an instruction manual

Who is this checklist for?

Anyone who is managing an EthOS project for the first time. Please make time to go through this document, don’t rush it. If you still have questions, use our support link. If you want a walk through of the platform – we will do as many as needed to help you get started – drop us a note, again, using support.

Let’s begin

There are a series of steps to this checklist:

1)    recruiting your respondents

2)    setting up the project

3)    inviting respondents to your project

4)    before the project starts

5)    once the project starts

If you feel I have missed anything please let me know so I can include it!

1) Recruiting your respondents

Remember our apps come in about 15 languages. If you need have more languages, just ask.

Our preference is that you recruit iPhone or Android users only. However, we do have a Blackberry app to which works extremely well. The only challenge is that company or Enterprise Blackberry’s rarely work as they should with our App. Personal Blackberry’s will work fine, but still, nothing like as smooth as the Android and iPhone apps.

The minimum smartphone OS versions we support are as follows:

iPhone iOS 5

Android 2.2

Blackberry OS 5

Be clear that respondents:

must have downloaded apps onto their devices previously. We recruit so many iPhone owners who have never had iTunes accounts or downloaded an app. Avoid these people if you can.

must be the owners of the devices they are using – borrowed devices cause many issues. Such as Dad wanting his iPhone back to go to work!

family members must be OK with being in the films respondents will make

must have Wi-Fi at home or, as in Indonesia, access to a location with Wi-Fi. Although the app works with with 3G and even EDGE, we want to reduce the cost to respondents of sending data.

may be asked to visit a facility to meet with other respondents/client and review their own films

may be invited to a WorkSpace to discuss and view theirs and other respondent’s entries.

Tip when using recruitment agencies

Do not pay over the odds to recruit respondents with smartphones. Do not let recruiters make you think that recruiting for mobile research projects is tougher than for normal qualitative research projects.

Don’t forget that you can also use sites like Craigslist to great effect. Or even approach panel companies to help you.

What to expect

When we place an ad with Craigslist, we receive many hundreds more respondents than we need. And when invites are sent, we find that the percentage who accept and participate is roughly 60%. But of those 60%, generally all complete all of the tasks.

If using a recruitment agency, the percentage who accept is higher, around 80%, and again, almost all with complete all of the tasks.

2) Setting up your project

Do you know the difference between tags, tasks and codes?

Tasks: activities or questions respondents need to respond to/complete

Tags: keywords to add richness and texture to entries sent. Either select ones suggested by you or add their own using the EthOS app.

Codes: similar to tags except they are created by you to organise the entries according to themes you see emerging.

When creating tasks be clear about which medium you want respondents to use. Is it video, photo, audio or text? Perhaps it’s a choice between video and audio.

Think about the wording of the task. Asking a respondent to capture everything they eat and drink across a week will generate very different data to asking them to make a film about how food and drink fits into their life. One is a record and the other a (potentially) richer source of understanding.

Either way, respondents will self-edit, and it’s up to you, the moderator, to unravel why they have sent you those particular entries. In short, the decision to send you whatever they have is data that needs to be analysed and interpreted too.

And if you know you want particular types of entries for tasks, make it clear in the wording of the task: ‘Please use video to show us the inside of you fridge while describing the contents.’

I your tasks are too detailed/complex to leave to a couple of lines on a respondent’s app, you can add the longer explanatory document to the project by uploading it under the documents tab.

Do not inundate respondents with too many tasks. You can roll the tasks out two or three at a time. Delete old ones and add new ones. Entries under the old tasks will not be deleted. We recommend a maximum of 6 tasks at any one time. Some can be continuous and some once only tasks.

3) Inviting respondents

Make sure the recruiters share each respondent’s email address, first and last name.

Note that you can add segmentation information at the point of inviting respondents, via a CSV file. It’s fairly intuitive, but you can organise a walkthrough to learn how if you prefer.

We recommend that you select the ‘send invites to me…’ check box so that each, unique invite comes to you. You can then cut and paste the information to your own company email before sending. Often, respondents have no idea who EthOS are. And we get accused of spamming them?

You can upload manually or larger groups including segmentation information using the downloadable CSV file in the ‘People’ link. Again, this is a checklist and if you need instruction please get in touch for a walk through.

4) Before the project starts

As soon as a respondent has been recruited, you need to make sure they can send entries from their device. Do not wait for your project to begin and then spend valuable time trouble-shooting. Here is a list of issues:

Issue	Solution
Can’t download app onto device	Usually because they don’t have an iTunes or similar account
Cannot send entries	Have they accepted their project invitation on-line?
They are sending entries which never arrive	This usually means they have created a default project and are sending entries to it in error. Not a problem as we can migrate entries back.
Entry will not send and keep seeing warning triangle	This likely a connectivity issue. Check Wi-Fi strength and/or 3G signal. Assumption that because they can easily send an email, they can just as easily send a 160mb file…
Company Blackberry won’t allow App to be downloaded	Avoid company Blackberry owners. Enterprise settings can rarely be changed in time.
Accepting project on app browser won’t work.	Correct – must use you laptop or desktop to sign up and accept projects

The above issues are thankfully rare and easily sorted. But please give yourself a few days and ideally a week before starting a large project to ensure everyone is on-boarded.

An important tip, please do not try to play the part of technical support. Any problems should be forwarded to us here: support@ethosapp.com or better still ask respondents to use the Help & Support link on the top right of the EthOS screen. Our priority is to free you up to focus on moderations, analysis and interpretation. Please live trouble shooting of respondents to us.

If you wish, you can leave on-boarding of your respondents to us for a fee based on your sample size.

5) Once the project starts

You can check respondent progress in couple of ways:

1)    Go to ‘summary’ link and see instantly how many entries respondents have sent

2)    Go to ‘tasks’ link (under filter section) and see which tasks have the most/least entries.

There is no need to wait until the end of your study to find out a respondent has sent nothing through or a task is very thin on entries.