Editor's note: Pierre Bélisle is president of Bélisle Marketing Ltd., a Cantley, Quebec, research and consulting firm. He is also on the advisory board of DocuMat, makers of Interclipper, the subject of this article.

The focus group participants are lively, engaged, and verbal. The torrent of new information does not overwhelm you, however. Whenever a participant offers a comment that you deem worthy of note, you press a button on an unobtrusive wireless device approximately the size of a television remote control. Each button press drops an inaudible marker in the audio being recorded in another room. Later, as you leave, the receptionist hands you a CD-ROM. The disk holds the audio record of both two-hour groups you conducted that evening, including the markers that you created.

These markers, like bookmarks in your Web browser, are linked to the moments you identified as noteworthy. At your computer the following morning, you click on the first marker. Instantly, the audio from the group the previous evening begins to play on the speakers connected to your sound card. Each of the other citations - indeed, all of the sessions - you wanted to remember is similarly but a mouse click away!

This is not science fiction. I have been using a similar system (but recording the sound myself) for over two years now and described the process in a previous Quirk's article ("Digital recording of qualitative interviews," December 1998). The impact has been considerable, not only in terms of the time saved, but also in terms of the depth and quality of the analysis. I believe that my reports are better because I spend more time with the original data - not a transcript - than I did before. My level of confidence in the findings has grown accordingly, and the authority of the reporting voice has increased.

(In the December 1998 issue, I alerted readers to the benefits of digital recording. These included:

  • instant access to any part of the interview without rewinding or fast-forwarding;
  • greater familiarity with the original data;
  • productivity gains by bookmarking noteworthy clips;
  • added value by putting the audio highlights on the computer desktop for easy inclusion in reports and presentations.)

InterClipper, a new product from DocuMat (www.interclipper.com), now promises to take digital recording even further, and to provide qualitative researchers (and other professional listeners) with enhanced analytic tools. Its first benefit, however, is that it is intended to be offered as both a product and a service, for researchers who do not want to involve themselves in the minutiae of recording. There are others.

You are looking for a clip in particular. The client has asked you to find the actual words from the participant who was "the frequent buyer...it was sometime during the early part of the seniors group, just after we'd showed them the first concept, and she said something like 'This is the best thing since sliced bread'." You recall marking just such a clip.

You set the selection filter to exclude all records but those from the seniors group, and then select only those citations from the second part of the discussion. There are 10 clips altogether, and you sample each by clicking on it, until - bingo! - you have the clip you want. You export the clip and e-mail it to your client. Total elapsed time: two minutes and 15 seconds.

The ability to navigate to a particular clip will delight those with a need for speed or more efficiency. It is but one of the powerful arguments for digital recording, however, and there are yet others.

Your computer monitor displays two main items of information (see above). The first is a waveform of the interview. The second appears to be a spreadsheet. You click on the twelfth clip - the twelfth row in the spreadsheet - and hear once again one of the participants waxing eloquent about the first product concept. All clips are not created equal, and this one should definitely appear in the final report. You begin filling in some of the fields - the columns - of the grid. You type in a "5" in the "Rating" field, a signal to your assistant to transcribe this clip verbatim in the "transcription" field intended for this purpose.

Database of citations

What sets InterClipper apart from other digital recording solutions in my opinion is the functionality it provides the qualitative research staff to assign codes, comments -- and even numerical values, should you be so inclined - to each citation. The researcher is, in effect, creating a database of citations that can be manipulated according to the information needs.

The searches or queries of the database can be either simple, as in the previous example of searching for a particular citation according to the session and the time in the session, or they can be more sophisticated, depending on the type and quantity of data that has been entered. It might be possible, for instance, to:

  • find all clips of the San Francisco groups;
  • find all clips but those in the San Francisco groups;
  • find all clips in the second San Francisco group that were also positive statements about Concept A;
  • find all clips that described positives about Concept A and included the word "strength" in the "transcription" field - and compare these to clips about Concept B.

With InterClipper, it seems to me, qualitative researchers finally have the option of using sophisticated analytic tools without first resorting to an expensive and time-consuming transcription of the entire record. The added benefit is that they work with direct access to the audio.

InterClipper is intended for listeners who must report on their listening. So, who might not be interested in Interclipper? For one, those who do little analysis might be uninterested. Consultants who only moderate obviously have no need for analytic software. For another, consultants who only deal with small projects might find that changing from their current methodology is not worth their while (even though I do find it useful even for small projects of two and four sessions).

Who would find it invaluable? First, consultants who want to do more and better analysis. They are the ones who now complain that they have neither the time nor the resources to perform the analysis they would like to. With InterClipper, you will spend more time with the gems and less with the dross. You will increase your familiarity with the data, and put the actual audio record of the interviews on your desktop, for easy referral and insertion into reports and presentations.

A second target group for InterClipper will be those consultants who want to do less analysis, but who still want to retain ownership of it. Using InterClipper, for instance, the moderator determines at the interview stage what the important segments are, and can then delegate to assistants or subcontractors the transcription, coding, and even analysis of these clips, perhaps using master templates.

Some frequently asked questions about InterClipper

What about sound quality?

As good or better than the audio cassette recordings you now receive from facilities.

Can I put these clips in a presentation?

Definitely. One of the key benefits of this approach is that the sound is "on the desktop." With one click of the mouse, the sound clip is exported to the program of your choice.

Can this work with an observer or note-taker marking in the back room?

Definitely. The backroom person can mark the clips and enter notes (who said it, for instance, or a few keywords) directly into the program.

Which facilities offer the InterClipper service?

As of this writing (October 1999), InterClipper is available as a software product for moderators who want to both record and playback digitally. The company has plans to begin offering it as a service through facilities in late 1999.