{"id":186,"date":"2024-06-09T08:26:54","date_gmt":"2024-06-09T08:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/?p=186"},"modified":"2024-06-09T08:31:57","modified_gmt":"2024-06-09T08:31:57","slug":"choosing-your-study-participants-the-importance-of-segmentation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/2024\/06\/09\/choosing-your-study-participants-the-importance-of-segmentation\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing Your Study Participants: The Importance of Segmentation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Customer\/audience segmentation is one of the most important parts of marketing user studies, but what is the best way to go about this process? A 2022 research study found that researchers frequently do not define their study participants in adequate detail, which is a disconcerting finding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best practices will advise you to focus on segmentation by age, gender, nationality, education, occupation, or income. These are excellent foundations for beginning any user study and help answer the question of who<\/em>, but they all fall under the umbrella of demographic segmentation, which is only one of four main types of segmentation<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Market
Segmentation color illustration [Source: Canva]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Geographic (the where), psychographic (the why), and behavioral (the how) segmentation add more specificity to a study. For instance, if you were attempting to recruit participants for an eye-tracking study using Metric to understand better what aspects of your landing page customers fixate on, your recruitment requirements would need a psychographic element that addresses the participants\u2019 physical abilities. You would need to know if they wear glasses, are partially or fully visually impaired, suffer from night blindness, or have any form of amblyopia (lazy eye), as these can affect the results of your study and perhaps give you some insights into how much of your audience needs to be specially catered to.

There are, of course, many other subtypes of market segmentation, such as technographic, transactional, firmographic (b2b), and generational\/life stage segmentation, but ultimately, it’s important not to get entirely caught up on the types but rather focus on the kinds of questions these segmentation types can help you answer, depending on what you need for your market research. It is important to remember that these are not mutually exclusive and can be used collaboratively to achieve the desired level of specificity for the study.

Read more research about sample selection! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salminen, J., Jung, S.G., Kamel, A., Froneman, W., and Jansen, B. J. (2022) Who is in the sample? An analysis of real and surrogate users as participants in user study research in the information technology fields<\/em>. PeerJ Computer Science. 8:e1136 https:\/\/doi.org\/10.7717\/peerj-cs.1136<\/a>


Try out METRIC<\/a> now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Customer\/audience segmentation is one of the most important parts of marketing user studies, but what is the best way to go about this process? A 2022 research study found that researchers frequently do not define their study participants in adequate detail, which is a disconcerting finding. Best practices will advise you to focus on segmentation … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[31,39,38,32,25,4,9],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-user-study","tag-eye-tracking","tag-marketing","tag-segmentation","tag-user-engagement","tag-user-experience","tag-user-study","tag-users"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":62,"url":"https:\/\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/2022\/07\/28\/fixation-and-confusion-investigating-eye-tracking-participants-exposure-to-information-in-personas\/","url_meta":{"origin":186,"position":0},"title":"Fixation and Confusion \u2013 Investigating Eye-tracking Participants\u2019 Exposure to Information in Personas","date":"July 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"To more effectively convey relevant information to end users of persona profiles, we conducted a user study consisting of 29 participants engaging with three persona layout treatments. We were interested in confusion engendered by the treatments on the participants, and conducted a within-subjects study in the actual work environment, using\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "user study"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":282,"url":"https:\/\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/2024\/07\/04\/actionable-data-creating-personas-from-metric-data-analytics\/","url_meta":{"origin":186,"position":1},"title":"Actionable Data: Creating Personas from METRIC Data Analytics","date":"July 4, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Personas represent important segments\u00a0of a target audience or user base, making them indispensable tools in marketing, user experience (UX) design, product development, and education. Personas in marketing help create content and campaigns specifically tailored to various client bases' demands, preferences, and behaviors. They aid in making assessments about the user\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "analytics"","img":{"alt_text":"Personas are essential tools in fields such as marketing, user experience (UX) design, product development, and education, serving to represent key segments of a target audience or user base","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Personas.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":206,"url":"https:\/\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/2024\/06\/12\/integrated-marketing-courses-with-metric\/","url_meta":{"origin":186,"position":2},"title":"Integrated Marketing Courses with METRIC","date":"June 12, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Did you know the global advertising industry is worth over 500 billion US dollars as of 2023? However, not all ads are successful. Not all advertisers implement proper marketing strategies or hire marketing specialists to handle this for them. It is a shame because this would save them more money\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "user study"","img":{"alt_text":"Marketing: Media User Insights, Prefered methods of Media consumption","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Marketing.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":75,"url":"https:\/\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/2022\/09\/30\/who-is-in-the-sample-an-analysis-of-real-and-surrogate-users-as-participants-in-user-study-research-in-the-information-technology-fields\/","url_meta":{"origin":186,"position":3},"title":"Who is in the sample? An analysis of real and surrogate users as participants in user study research in the information technology fields","date":"September 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"This research aims to determine how often user studies reported in peer-reviewed information technology literature sample real users or surrogate users as participants. Constructing a sample of real users as participants in user studies is considered by most researchers to be vital for the validity, usefulness, and applicability of research\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "user study"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":231,"url":"https:\/\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/2024\/06\/25\/benefits-of-metric-in-teaching-user-study-analytics\/","url_meta":{"origin":186,"position":4},"title":"Benefits of METRIC in Teaching User Study Analytics","date":"June 25, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Analytics Illustration [Source: ACUA] Various industries benefit from user analytic studies, both with and without knowledge. E-Commerce, logistics and transportation, hospitality, web development, real estate, healthcare, public services, and even education. Many industries need user feedback to improve their services, so implementing user analytic studies in academia benefits students. Here\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "analytics"","img":{"alt_text":"Benefits of METRIC in Teaching User Study Analytics","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Screen-Shot-2024-06-13-at-5.59.38-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":188,"url":"https:\/\/metric.qcri.org\/blog\/2024\/06\/11\/spyware-deconstructing-3-myths-about-eye-tracking\/","url_meta":{"origin":186,"position":5},"title":"Spyware? Deconstructing 3 Myths About Eye Tracking","date":"June 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"With the rise of the use of eye tracking in fields such as medical and psychological research, marketing research, and human-computer interaction studies, skepticism and conspiracy theories about the study method are unavoidable. So let's deconstruct some of these myths and theories. Heatmap from Survey2Persona Landing Page [Source: Metric] 1.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "eye tracking"","img":{"alt_text":"Spyware? 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