Internet-Mediated Research: Affordances, Technology, Lessons Learned

Survey and qualitative research conducted online is an exciting new focus in Technical Communication. This paper reports technical aspects of and lessons learned from online mixed survey and qualitative studies of a large U.S. medical field. Potentially faster to design and deploy than traditional approaches, online research is constrained by the same underlying research principles and conventions. There are abundant commercial vendors of online research technology, and these offer a variety of important advantages compared to traditional, print-based approaches. The technical and logistical limitations of online research may offset the anticipated advantages. Online researchers should see to aesthetics and usability in survey instruments, and take steps to improve participant response rates. Online research facilitates collection of rich qualitative data, but the frequent need for anonymity makes probing of respondents problematic.