Video Survey Platform for Market Research

Project overview

A consumer-driven solution for creating and managing video surveys. Registered users can apply for a survey, record and submit video responses to survey questions, and get paid for sharing their insight. The videos are then processed by a transcription service and made available to product companies for detailed customer feedback analysis.

Client: a US-based market research company that collects consumer data via video surveys, providing marketing insights for brands like Microsoft, Dell, and Virgin America.

Industry

Professional Services

Delivery Model

SLA-driven task backlog delivery (TM-based)

Domain

Online Video, AdTech, Business Intelligence, eCommerce, FinTech

Effort and Duration

8 months, 33 man-months

Technologies

Ruby, Mobile, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, ReactJS, React Native, PostgreSQL, Zencoder, TranscribeMe

Business challenge

The client was looking to update a business-critical marketing survey solution with a threefold purpose: to attract a greater number of business users, to expand the respondent pool, and to facilitate the implementation of new features.

The existing system’s libraries had been deprecated and unmaintained, so the client opted for the development of a modern web platform from scratch and a complete redesign of the mobile application — with the subsequent integration of the two.

Oxagile’s differentiators

Oxagile stood out due to a combination of solid domain expertise in end-to-end video-based solutions and previous experience in developing custom marketing analytics systems.
In addition, Oxagile’s well-defined, predictable Scrum process fitted the client’s business objectives in terms of flexibility and transparency.

Delivered solution

The resulting product is an innovative video survey solution for market research that allows designers, advertisers, and corporate strategists gain authentic consumer feedback in a fast and hassle-free way. The workflow is simple and effective:

Submitting a survey. A company submits survey questions and parameters to Mindswarms. These may include the preferred timeframe, required number of participants, their location, occupation, age, gender, etc.

Screening the respondent pool. Registered users can browse through current surveys and apply for participation. The survey administrator has all successful applicants fill in a text questionnaire to determine the best-fitting individuals that will form the final respondent group.

Gathering feedback. Using their webcam or mobile device, participants record 1080p video responses to the survey questions. The videos are then seamlessly made available to the administrator via an unobtrusive background upload.

Ensuring quality. If the videos comply with the platform’s quality standards, the respondent receives a PayPal payment in 24 hours. Otherwise, the administrator can utilize the email notifications system to request a re-recording.

Generating insights. Final survey results include a shareable matrix of all video responses complete with transcripts delivered via a tight integration with TranscribeMe. This way, consumer feedback can be easily analyzed and used in reports or presentations.

Innovative development across web and mobile

Rebuilt from the ground up, the web version of the solution delivers full functionality for all user types. The web platform leverages a modern tech stack, utilizing a combination of ReactJS and Redux, among other tools.

Survey participants can also use a cross-platform mobile application. By relying on React Native, the team managed to achieve fast component rendering, an uncluttered UI, and a native look-and-feel across both iOS and Android. In addition, this cross-platform approach helped significantly cut the development and maintenance costs.

To accommodate the fast-paced Scrum process, Oxagile built a powerful Ruby-based CI pipeline. Frequent unit tests helped reduce the number of bugs and deploy new features much faster.

Scalability and performance

For the project to succeed, it was paramount to ensure dependable system performance under a significant load. In particular, the platform had to sustain 5,000 concurrent requests and 100 concurrent video uploads.

Oxagile was able to meet the requirements by optimizing the solution for speed and boosting scalability. The team deployed a robust, horizontally scalable infrastructure and introduced separate AWS instances for video upload.

Conclusion

The client received a revamped online survey platform that can provide brands and research companies with personalized consumer insights and assist them in making strategic decisions or determining the success of new concepts.

Oxagile delivered a first-rate product on time and on budget, prompting the client to continue cooperation. After releasing and market-testing the initial version, the Client intends to further enhance the transcript feature and develop a full-fledged interviewer bot using machine learning.

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