Primary research: Answers

After forming my questionnaire, I sent it out to multiple people to respond to it. I was aiming to gather more than 20 responses in order to have a good amount of reliable research. Gathering as many responses as possible would create a diverse and broad collection of different answers. 

To my surprise, I managed to gather 33 responses, which I consider a good amount. In this blog post, I will try to analyse my result and reach some conclusions from the responses of my target market. 

These were my results:

The first question was a demographic question to see how old are the respondents. The overwhelming majority (15 people) were of ages 16-20. However, I tried to send this form out to many age groups to gather as much information as possible. 

Five people were of ages 21-26. Five people were of ages 27-32, 6 were 32-36 years old and only 2 people were above 36. No one was below 16 in my questionnaire. 

I consider this a success as there is a variety of ages in my questionnaire, which will help to form a better idea of what should be included in my designs.

There were 22 females responding to my questionnaire and 11 males. Once again, even though the overwhelming majority are females, I have enough information from both genders in order to have unbiased results.

I was very pleased with the results in this question. At first, I was very cautious with this question. It can be misleading as it can lead people to envision very bulky and huge designs. 

However, to my surprise, there was no one that said that they would not purchase it.

11 people said maybe and 22 said yes. I think that these are great results. 

It is up to me now to make designs that will make those 11 people attracted to my design and persuade them. A maybe is better than a no as it means that people are open to the idea of it.

These results are very encouraging. 

This question showed me very diverse results and that everyone wants a different type of lamp. This is good as this collection will focus on 5 different type of lamps. This means that everyone will have the option to select from a variety of type of lamps according to their preference.

The most votes were for the night bedside lamp (9 votes), then the desk lamp (7 votes), then the wall and ceiling lamp with 6 votes and last the floor lamp (5 votes).

Personally, I was surprised by these results. I was expecting the night bedside table to have the least votes as I could not envision people asking for that the most. Additionally, I was expecting the floor lamp to have the most votes as I find it more visually pleasing and modern. Turns out, the results came in exactly the opposite. 

I am still unsure of what type of lamps I want to create, but these results will definitely help form my opinion.

This was another important question for this questionnaire. I was expecting people to immediately respond that they do not like any of those materials. However, to my surprise, only 2 people did not want any of the two materials. 

Most of the people (13 votes), wanted me to include both materials, which is ideal as that is what I wanted personally.

9 votes for only wood as a material and 9 for stone only. I am surprised that people are open to stone designs. I think that stone can be a challenging material to work with as it can appeal very bulky and not user friendly. However, I am happy that the respondents can see the vision and trust the process.

I am definitely planning on using different materials for this collection, and wood and stone are vital.

This was a helpful response too. I am still unaware of the direction I want to head in with my designs. They will be inspired by primitive eras but I want their aesthetics to have a modern twist. 

The results were: 10 elegant, 9 simple, 8 abstract, 4 bulky, 2 complex.

I am glad that the abstract had so many votes as I am planning to create abstract lamps.

However, I have to find a way to incorporate elegant and simple elements in some of the lamps to satisfy the majority of the target market in this questionnaire.

I may also create a bulky design as it helps resemble the stone age more. 

This response was directed towards the price point of the designs. 1 was equivalent to £10 and 5 was equivalent to more than £100.

Most people decided to vote for three which is approximately £50. I think that this is very surprising as I was expecting people to want a much lower price point than that. This definitely gives me a lot of room to play around with good quality materials and produce great outcomes. 

6 people voted for 20-30£, 10 people voted for 70-80£ and 2 people voted for more than 100£.

The two people that voted for more than £100 are the anomalous points in my question. I will not be aiming to create something that expensive as many people would not be able to afford it.

I will strive to create products that are around 20-50£ each in order to be good quality, sustainable, durable and satisfy the user.

This question helped me determine what kind of colour scheme would be desirable in my collection. 23 people said neutral, 6 said bright and 4 said dark.

An overwhelming majority prefers neutral colours which is what I wanted the outcome to be.  I will be playing with neutral and natural colours in my lamp designs mostly as it is evident that the target market prefers it.

I may also have bright or dark elements to satisfy all people.

The results of this question can be seen next to each bar. However, the overwhelming majority in this question prefers aesthetics. However, as seen in the diagram, every single elements in has many votes. Therefore, it is important to consider the price, durability, sustainability, aesthetics, weight and function in order to satisfy everyone.  If I carefully consider and add these elements then I think that my designs will be successful in the market. 

This was another question regarding the preference of the users. 13 people do not like patterns, 11 people said maybe and 9 people said yes. I am not planning to include any patterns so far as I want to keep it simple. This helped me understand that patterns can limit my target market as it may not match with someone's aesthetic. 

This is another question regarding the function, not only the aesthetics side of things. This will help me understand what the user is looking for in terms of the function. 26 people prefer adjustable brightness and 7 do not. It is evident that I need to consider the adjustable lighting, especially in a night bedside lamp. 

This will allow users to customise their brightness to their preference. I can also consider the lamp changing colours. 

This question is another one regarding the function. 15 people prefer for the lamp to have both a remote and a button. I think it is smart to include both in case their loose the remote, they will have an alternative option. 

8 people said only remote and 7 people said only button. 2 people voted to control it via an app and 1 more voted for voice recognition.

I think that I will discard the app and voice recognition. It can be complex for people unfamiliar with technology and since I am trying to create products that remind us of primitive eras, it would not be very suitable. I may consider including both a button and a remote. 

Conclusion: Some of these responses were unexpected, like the type of lamp the users prefer. However, this research was very eye-opening and helped me understand what the people want in their lamps. 

I will be including secondary research to back up these findings.