I recently found out that the married couple in the original 1950 movie, Cheaper By The Dozen was the same couple who developed some of the earliest Time and Motion Studies. With a combination of observation and creativity, Frank & Lillian Gilbreth introduced a non-stooping scaffold that allowed masons to drastically improve their productivity in their bricklaying work. See for yourself.
This got me thinking about parallels in the market research industry and the role imagery plays in online surveying. By using image-based tools and techniques, we can likewise improve respondents’ “productivity”, giving them aids to better communicate emotions and associations that are difficult to express with words alone. Through images, they can “lift” ideas too heavy for text responses. We then have this imagery available to help the researcher communicate findings and insights to their audience.
