As more and more market research surveys are conducted online, older technologies tend to stand still. Why? Because the software companies are racing to be leaders in the next big thing. This can leave a void meaning that older technologies don’t develop as much as they could.
Data reporting in market research is starting to change. We are emerging from a 20-year or so period where PowerPoint presentations have dominated into an era where online data visualisation can become the norm.
Online dashboards have come to the market research industry, but they are certainly not the norm for most projects. Market research will be in a better place once the key variables from EVERY market research project can be made available easily and inexpensively to research buyers.
I have always admired Quantum as a market research analysis program. It is still powerful enough to process most survey tabulations, but after almost 20 years without development, its position has slipped. Whilst still functionally strong, modern releases of Windows do not support Quantum. The alternatives are few with MRDCL, Merlin and Uncle being the main choices.
In my experience, I find that most people who buy research software spend most of their time considering the look and feel of the software and the features it contains…What is often given little or no consideration is how productive the staff using the software will be.
Crosstabs, survey analyses, call them what you will, are available in a vast number of software products. If you are looking for a top of the range crosstab software package, there are few choices. Here’s a comparison.
Completion rates for online surveys can drop dramatically if you do not adhere to a few simple rules. Some are connected to the software you use, but many are practical tips that will work with any software you choose. So let’s get started.
EPS is a technique built into MRDCL which allows you to construct your own templates so that you can read instructions stored in an Excel workbook/worksheet that will generate variables, tables or whatever else you want.
When you get a series of support requests where the recipients of the support reply something like “thanks, but that’s quite tedious to script”, you realise you need to show someone a better way.
One of the topics where we receive most support requests for MRDCL is in the handling of numeric fields or the usage of arithmetic. In this article, I will try to cover most of the issues raised and explain how and why MRDCL works the way it does.