Historically, most ideation studies were conducted through qualitative means. As technology improves, it is increasingly possible to engage respondents in gaming or other techniques that bring forth new ideas.   A fundamental mantra here is that if you want to know the answer to a question, ask it. So, we do ask for ideas and suggestions in every study as part of due diligence and are pleasantly surprised with the ideas and recommendations that emerge.

As we categorize the content of open-ended responses and user diaries, we work to determine the sentiment that a person has towards the product, service, or other interaction under review.  The method that we use depends on the base size and subject matter of a given study.   Our experience, to date, is that human interpretation of sentiment, especially for small to mid-size studies is more accurate than machine learning; however, we do run comparative measures across human and AI platforms.