A video survey is type of unmoderated qualitative research which takes advantage of the fact that almost everyone has a smartphone by asking surevy takers to respond to a series of instructions or questions by making a short video for each.
Video survey responses are typically 1-2 minutes long and most often they are ‘selfie’ videos in which you can see the participant answering the question. But they can also be videos in which the participants show something else using the rear-facing camera on their phones, for example “show me where the central heating boiler in your home is located” or “show me the mode of transport that you use to get to work”. They can even be videos in which the participants narrate an activity that they are carrying out on their smartphone, such as navigating an app or a website, while recording what’s on the screen.
The benefits of a video survey include giving participants more flexibility on timing compared to an online interview, and capturing facial expressions and “in the moment” reactions in a way that can be very engaging for clients.
There are a number of specialist video survey tools available, and video response capabilities are also built into many online bulletin board platforms and general-purpose online survey platforms. Some of these tools generate automatic transcripts from the videos that are uploaded, which speeds up analysis and reporting, and some of them use AI features to analyse the participants' facial expressions or the language that they use in order to infer the sentiments that are being expressed.
Simple video surveys can also be carried out without using a dedicated platform at all – at FieldworkHub, we’ve run many video surveys using various platforms, but we also have experience of running surveys in which the questions are sent to the participants and they simply upload their video responses to a website.
