Plan a research data collection campaign

Separate the research question from the questionnaire

A research question describes what you want to understand. The questionnaire asks people about experiences they can actually describe. “Why do new users leave?” might become questions about the task they attempted, the point where they stopped and what they expected next.

Choose whether you need open descriptions, category labels or a review task. Tellseed manages the collection workflow and your agent helps prepare it. It does not recruit a representative panel or validate the research method for you.

Define participants and explain the purpose

Specify who is eligible, how you will invite them and what participation involves. Explain the intended use of their answers in the introduction, including whether you plan to quote or contact them.

Collect only the information your work needs. If names or email addresses are unnecessary, leave those settings disabled. If they are optional, make that clear. Follow the review and consent requirements of your own organisation for research that needs them.

Turn the plan into a campaign draft

Give your connected agent the research goal, audience, language, format and round length. Include the exact introduction or consent wording your organisation requires instead of asking the model to invent an approval.

Pilot the wording and collection flow

Check the contributor preview with a small group before the main collection. Ask whether the questions make sense, whether any need context and how long a round takes in practice. Do not promise a completion time that you have not measured.

After approval and publication, run a complete test round. Verify the intended question count, skip behaviour and saved answers. Keep pilot responses distinguishable in your analysis if they should not be part of the main dataset.

Export a dataset with enough context to interpret

Ask the agent for the answers view, current statistics and an export. Keep the campaign version, question wording, collection period and recruitment method with the data. Check whether each row represents one answer or one participant before calculating percentages.

Inspect raw responses and missing values before asking for themes. If the agent proposes a coding scheme, review it on a sample and document any changes. Keep interpretations separate from direct statements in the data.

Report the limits of the sample. An exploratory campaign can suggest patterns and new questions; the tool alone does not establish causality or population-level conclusions.