Enabling techniques

Enabling techniques are methods used in qualitative research, particularly in depth interviews and focus groups, to help respondents articulate their thoughts, feelings, and opinions more fully. These techniques encourage participants to provide richer, more detailed responses than they might give spontaneously, often allowing them to explore sensitive or socially undesirable topics indirectly.

Common enabling techniques include:

Personification: Asking respondents to describe a product, brand, or concept as if it were a person.
Word association: Encouraging respondents to react quickly to words or phrases to uncover subconscious attitudes.
Collages and mapping: Visual exercises that allow participants to express ideas, feelings, or priorities creatively.
Role play: Placing participants in imagined scenarios to explore behaviours, motivations, or decision-making processes.

At DJS Research, enabling techniques are frequently applied by research directors in focus groups and depth interviews to uncover deeper insights and provide clients with more nuanced, actionable understanding of their audiences.

Why partner with DJS Research?

We build small, director-led, teams of sector experts who are with you from brief to debrief. As an employee-owned company, every one of us is invested in delivering quality, value, and long-term impact.

From agile testing to deep-dive strategic studies, we design research to meet your specific objectives. The agility of our in-house operations team and strength of our UK-wide recruiter network enable seamless execution at scale.

Our sector-focused teams have decades of experience understanding audiences and the complexities of the markets in which our clients operate. Working collaboratively we deliver actionable insight which drives positive change.

We are small enough. We are big enough. We are DJS Research

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Contact us today to discuss your next market research project and discover how we could become a valuable extension of your team.

Contact us today to discuss your next market research project and discover how we could become a valuable extension of your team.