Most qualitative research today is described as "digital".
In practice, that often just means old methods in new tools.
Focus groups are now run in Zoom.
In-depth interviews happen in Teams instead of over the phone.
What's missing is an actual rethink.
Research methods have been lightly digitalised. People haven't.
Focus groups became widely used in the 1950s, in a very different media and social landscape. Since then, the way people communicate, form opinions and share experiences has changed dramatically. If people's lives have evolved this much, it's reasonable to ask whether the formats we use to understand them should evolve too.
Insight communities, for example, have existed for years and many leading insight teams use them. Yet many organisations still rely heavily on formats developed long before today's digital behaviours emerged.
To explore what this shift means for qualitative research, we spoke to Dora Harfman Bromée, VP Customer Success at Nepa, about what's misunderstood in today's methods and how qualitative insight can evolve in a digital world.
"Qualitative research doesn't become better because it's digital. It becomes better when it reflects how peopleactually live and communicate today." – Dora
"We didn't rethink qual, we just moved it online"
Q: Dora, you've said that the industry hasn't really had a serious debate about how qualitative research should evolve. Why do you think that is?
Because many people believe the transformation has already happened. We say qualitative research is digital now, but in reality, we mostly just transferred traditional methods into digital meeting rooms.
That's not the same as rethinking qual for a digital world.
At the same time, consumers have changed dramatically. Today, people are used to expressing themselves in writing, through messages, comments, photos, voice notes and reactions. Social platforms are where meaning is created, opinions are formed and experiences are shared.
Yet many research buyers still believe that you need to see people in real time to get rich insights. There's a strong assumption that if participants aren't speaking out loud in a room together, something is lost.
In practice, we see the opposite.
When people are given time to reflect, to write, to respond in their own words, and to interact with others over time, in ways that feel familiar to them, the insights often become deeper.
What happens when you design qual for how people actually live
Q: Can you give an example of what this looks like in practice?
A good example is a project we ran with a major real estate brand. The goal was to understand how people's housing needs and expectations are evolving.
Instead of running a few focus groups, we built a digital insight community, an online space where participants shared thoughts, photos and experiences over several weeks.
They documented their everyday lives, reacted to new housing concepts and discussed what "the home of the future" means to them.
The difference wasn't the format. It was how people participated.
Everyone had equal space to express themselves. There was no dominance by the loudest voice in the room. Participants reflected between tasks, returned with new thoughts and built on each other's ideas over time.
Because we followed people longitudinally, we could see how opinions shifted, where tensions emerged and what actually mattered in their lived experience.
The result was more grounded insight than we would typically get from a two-hour focus group.
Beyond communities, what qual becomes when you scale it
Q: What's next for qualitative research?
Digital communities are just one step. The bigger shift is about designing research around how people actually communicate and behave.
AI and advanced analytics are changing what we can do with qualitative data. Tools for analysing large volumes of text, moderating conversations and identifying patterns allow us to scale qualitative insight in new ways.
In many cases, this starts to blur the boundaries between qualitative and quantitative research. We can combine depth with scale in ways that weren't possible before.
When we design research with that broader toolbox in mind, qualitative insight becomes more continuous and easier to integrate into decision-making.
What this means in practice
Q: If you had to summarise the key takeaway, what would it be?
Qualitative research isn't becoming less relevant.
But it does need to let go of outdated assumptions.
The future belongs to approaches that reflect how people actually communicate today, in writing, over time and in interaction with others.
When we design qualitative research around that reality, we don't lose richness.
That's when you start to unlock it.
Want to explore how digital qualitative research can support better decisions?
Get in touch with Nepa's qualitative team and turn customer voices into decisions that drive growth.
Published on: 24TH MAR 2026