Two exciting milestones coming up...

It’s been several busy months since we last posted on our blog, but we simply had to take time out to talk about two important milestones for EnRAPTURE.

The first milestone is the upcoming launch of a new and improved EnRAPTURE in which we have totally revamped the technology on which EnRAPTURE is based.

This new version of EnRAPTURE which will enable EnRAPTURE enhanced engaging and exciting online surveys to be run on any computer or device (tablet computers, smartphones) across operating systems and browsers… that’s right, so EnRAPTURE is now iPad compatible!! Hooray!! 

This addresses the in-numerable questions we faced on EnRAPTURE’s iPad compatibility after we launched EnRAPTURE based on Flash. The tremendous success of iPads meant that more and more respondents would participate in online surveys on their tablets and given the aversion to Flash that the great (and late) Steve Jobs had, we knew that we had to start work on an iPad / iPhone compatible EnRAPTURE.

And it was just as well that we started exploring a non-Flash approach… Adobe itself seems to be moving away from Flash! So we spent the last few months focusing on re-creating the EnRAPTURE interfaces using HTML / HTML5 + Javascript and we are tremendously excited about releasing the new EnRAPTURE version later this week.

It’s taken us some time to get this new version out – but we feel it was time well spent - as we have been extremely picky and a lot has gone into making sure that the HTML / HTML5 + Javascript based interfaces have the same level of interactivity and visual appeal as the Flash interfaces had so that the respondent experience is not compromised in any way. Of course, we have retained the ease of use for EnRAPTURE users and they can use the same easy to use interface to set-up and customize their interactive questions.

Having done quite a bit of testing on an iPad, we believe that EnRAPTURE could significantly improve the survey participation experience of respondents who are using iPads and other tablets as they can make use of the gestures on touchscreens for an extremely intuitive experience… drag and drop is so much better when you can just use your finger instead of a mouse!

We are keenly looking forward to user reactions after they see the new EnRAPTURE in action… Only a few days left and counting down until this important milestone!

Onto the next milestone and this one’s pretty neat as well… we are delighted about EnRAPTURE being shortlisted as a finalist (Top 3) for the prestigious MRS/ASC Award for Technology Effectiveness. The winner will be announced at the MRS Awards gala dinner in London on 12th December. We’re keeping our fingers crossed!! 

Should we win the award, it will be affirmation of EnRAPTURE being a relevant and effective technology – something that our several customers experience on a daily basis!

It's Showtime Folks...

There’s so much stuff to update on the blog now, that I need to step on the gas and start churning out the entries fast. 

After the excitement of launching EnRAPTURE at the Confirmit Community Conference in Vegas, we decided to notch up the pace of development and focused on configuring EnRAPTURE to be compatible with IBM-SPSS Data Collection (the latest name for SPSS Dimensions) and Nebu.

Our philosophy of tight integration of EnRAPTURE with the leading survey platforms meant that we had to research IBM-SPSS Data Collection (Dimensions) and Nebu (Dub Interviewer) to understand how we could ‘optimize’ EnRAPTURE for these technologies. 

Unlike with Confirmit, with these technologies, we didn’t have the possibility of integrating EnRAPTURE with a GUI front-end – so we worked on figuring out the next best option. What we’ve achieved is pretty neat, we think! 

A user needs to follow a few simple steps to transform their Dimensions / Nebu online survey using EnRAPTURE – 

>the user goes to the EnRAPTURE website to set-up the interface 

>then copies one line of code from there 

>and simply pastes it alongside the question text in the survey script 

 Voila!!! The question is presented with a rich interface! 

 

We managed to finish the IBM-SPSS Data Collection (Dimensions) and Nebu compatibility for EnRAPTURE in time for the next market research conference we were exhibiting at – the Insight Show in London over 29^th and 30^th June! So off we went to London all charged up... to wow people with EnRAPTURE!! We had never been to the Insight Show before, so weren’t prepared for the massive scale of the event (actually there were 4 marketing related shows going on concurrently). One could get a sense of the scale the day before the event started, when exhibitors were allowed to put up the booths at the venue (Kensington Olympia)… And after a few initial hiccups with the pop-up booth backdrop, we managed to put up the booth (hurray!) and we thought it looked pretty darned good! 

Here is a picture of the venue Kensington Olympia and I’m sure it looks pretty huge and crowded with all the 4 shows going on… 

The two days that we spent at the Insight Show were pretty exhausting for the presenters – as we had large stream of visitors to the booth :) and despite two people doing the presentations, we ended up doing several rounds of EnRAPTURE demos (which could be 20+ mins each, depending on the questions asked). We were pretty exhausted and had nearly lost our voices by the end of Day 1! There was a Research Club networking event (yay - free drinks!!) organized by Bob Qureshi and team (bang opposite our booth), which was a welcome break for us. Of course the event soon moved to a nearby pub (plus spilled onto the street outside the pub) and it was a fun evening!

EnRAPTURE received tremendous response at the Insight Show and the interest from several prospects has been great!

On the EnRAPTURE interfaces front, we have been working on several exciting new ones some of which we launched recently and others that we will be releasing soon. It’s been great to get feedback and suggestions on new interfaces and we would love to hear your ideas. In fact, if your suggestion for a new interface is something that we haven’t thought of, we will be happy to reward you with free access to EnRAPTURE. Ideas and feedback, as always, are welcome.

EnRAPTURE - The journey so far...

WOW! The past three months since we launched EnRAPTURE on the 9^th of May have flown by at Mach speed! Have finally (phew!) got some time to catch up on our breath and put down some of our thoughts and experiences in this blog - which I’ve been meaning to put out there for a while now!

It’s been quite a journey so far… going back to last year, after several months of discussions, debates, design and re-designs (wireframes!), development and testing, we were finally ready with EnRAPTURE around April. And in this blog entry I want to share some parts of the journey.

A quick background on why we developed EnRAPTURE… the online survey research industry has grappled with many concerns over the years… the early days were about clients voicing concerns regarding the non-representativeness of the online sample and now the industry has to think about how to deal with the falling survey response rates. Online researchers need to own up to the sins of taking respondents for granted for many years and the several instances of bad research – long, meaningless, boring surveys having been inflicted on respondents. Having participated in setting up a testing many an online survey, I often wondered how people have the patience to take those surveys! Am sure you agree!

It was high time for a solution that enabled researchers to field much better looking and engaging surveys that respondents would actually like to participate in. While the surveys would need to be on par with the other rich content that people encounter online, the market would also needed a solution which is comprehensive, powerful, easy and quick to use, and cost effective as well! EnRAPTURE (which stands for Engaging Respondents Active Participation Through the Use of Rich Elements) is our answer to this need.

As we conceptualized EnRAPTURE, we looked to differentiate on simplicity & ease of use and quickly figured the best way of doing this was via tight integration with the leading survey systems – Confirmit, IBM-SPSS Data Collection (Dimensions) etc. This philosophy has driven most of the development efforts and it was great to be able to establish a strong partnership with Confirmit who saw value in what we were doing and extended to us tremendous support. Working closely with the Confirmit development team, we were able to build EnRAPTURE in a manner such that it is available as an app within Confirmit. This makes EnRAPTURE an extremely easy to use application for Confirmit users.

We were able to launch EnRAPTURE at the Confirmit Community Conference in Las Vegas on the 9^th of May and had the great opportunity of being able to give a presentation on EnRAPTURE at the conference.

We were thrilled with the tremendous response we got at the conference (the back-to-back demos were pretty tiring!) and we were all excited with all the great feedback that we got from anyone who saw EnRAPTURE. It was my first trip to Vegas and while everyone’s heard of the casino culture and the unique business ‘eco-system’ that the city has, you’ve got to see it to believe it. Where in the world would you find rows and rows of slot machines at the airport – so you can start gambling as soon as you land! 

Everything about the city is ‘over the top’ especially the kitshy architecture on the strip – best viewed from the roof-top bar at The Palms

Since then, it’s been an unending stream of conducting demos and working on the extremely useful feedback that we have received from customers who have suggested various tweaks to improve EnRAPTURE. If you haven’t signed up for EnRAPTURE as yet, then please do – you can trial EnRAPTURE for free – all we want is your feedback.

Next up was setting up EnRAPTURE for other survey platforms (IBM-SPSS Data Collection {formerly Dimensions} and Nebu) and showcasing EnRAPTURE at the Insight Show in London – but will leave that for the next post.