Manchester event: Slow research – taking your time to gain true insight

In 2017 Qual Street embarked on a self-funded project designed to explore the insight that could be gained from spending a year exploring participants’ lives.

Their ambition was to use a methodology that would allow them to see how consumer behaviour developed over time: how consumers adopt new habits and patterns of behaviour; how the events during the course of a year affect consumption; and what really drives decision making.

In this presentation they will outline the ups and downs of spending a year with nine women who described themselves as ‘just about managing’ financially. We will highlight the types of insights that emerge from slow research and the perspective on these women’s lives that we gain by doing it slowly. We also examine what you can’t do well with slow research, the question techniques and methods that didn’t quite work, and the questions that remain unanswered. We’ll finish by identifying when, why and how slow research can benefit a business.