What is a Quantitative Study?

Overview

A Quantitative Study is a survey-based research study that helps you collect structured feedback from a large number of participants. It is used to measure opinions, preferences, attitudes and behaviours across your target audience.

Decode's Quantitative Study covers a wide range of research needs including concept testing, brand tracking, ad testing, user research and more. Results and reports are available directly within the platform once responses are collected.

How a Quantitative Study Works

A Quantitative Study in Decode follows a structured flow. The survey is built by adding question blocks and arranging them in order. Logic is set up to control which blocks participants see based on their responses. Screening questions filter participants before they enter the main study. The study can be previewed before going live to check flow and logic. Once published, participants access the study through a shared link, and responses are collected and available to view in the Results and Report tabs.

Study Structure

Every Quantitative Study has a fixed structure. It starts with a Welcome block where you can introduce the study to participants, followed by your question blocks, and ends with a Thank You page. You can customise the content of both the Welcome and Thank You pages.

What Participants Experience

Participants receive a link to the study. They open it on any device including mobile, tablet and desktop, and go through the questions at their own pace. Depending on the logic set up, they may see different questions based on their previous answers.

When to Use a Quantitative Study

Use a Quantitative Study when you need to collect structured feedback from a large number of participants, test product concepts, brand messages, advertisements or packaging designs, measure consumer preferences, awareness or purchase intent, run in-context social media testing before publishing content, or conduct user research tasks such as prototype testing or card sorting.

Common Use Cases

Concept Testing: Test new product or campaign concepts with your target audience before moving into development or production. Measure appeal, uniqueness and purchase intent.
Brand Tracking: Track brand awareness, perception and loyalty over time by running the same study periodically and comparing results across waves.
Ad Testing: Evaluate ad creatives, taglines or storyboards before a campaign goes live. Measure recall, message clarity and emotional response.
Pricing Research: Test how participants respond to different price points to identify the price range that is most acceptable for a product or service.
Usage and Attitude Studies: Understand how consumers use a product or category, what they value in it and what their unmet needs are.
Customer Satisfaction: Collect structured feedback from existing users of your product or service to measure satisfaction and identify areas for improvement.
Prototype Testing: Test a design or interface before development to identify usability issues and validate design decisions.
Card Sorting: Ask participants to group and organise items to understand how they think about information. Use this to inform navigation and content structure.
First Click Testing: Record where participants click first on an interface to evaluate whether the layout directs attention to the right elements.
Preference Testing: Present two or more design or concept options and ask participants which they prefer. Use this to compare directions before committing to one.
A/B Testing: Show two versions of content or a design to different participant groups and measure which performs better.

Question Blocks

A Quantitative Study is built using blocks organised into five categories: Basic, Advanced, Media, Social Media In-Context and User Research. Each category covers a different type of research need.

Basic

Basic blocks are standard question formats for collecting structured responses. Use these to ask participants about their opinions, preferences, ratings and open-ended feedback across any research topic.

Context Block: Displays text or instructions to participants without collecting a response. Use this to introduce a section, set context before a question or provide information participants need before answering.
Date Time: Asks participants to enter a specific date, time or both as their response. Use this when your question requires a precise date or time value, such as when a participant last used a product, when they plan to make a purchase or when an event occurred.
Dropdown: Presents a list of options in a dropdown for single selection. Use this when the list of options is long and showing them all at once would make the screen difficult to read.
Likert Scale: Asks participants to rate their level of agreement or satisfaction on a scale, typically from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Use this to measure attitudes consistently across all participants.
Multiple Choice: Allows participants to select one or more options from a defined list. Use this for questions where the possible answers are fixed and known in advance.
Ranking: Asks participants to rank a set of items in order of preference or importance. Use this when you need to understand how participants prioritise across a set of options, not just which one they prefer overall.
Smiley Rating: Collects feedback using a visual scale of facial expressions ranging from very negative to very positive. Use this when you want a fast read on how participants feel about something and a numeric or text scale would create unnecessary friction in the survey flow.
Star Rating: Asks participants to rate something on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. Use this to measure satisfaction, quality or overall experience.
Text Response: Collects open-ended written responses. Use this when you want participants to explain their answers or provide detail that a structured format would not capture.
Thumbs Up/Down: Asks participants to give a positive or negative reaction to a statement, image or concept. Use this when you need a fast directional response and the question does not require a scale or explanation. It is useful for screening reactions to multiple stimuli quickly within the same study.

Advanced

Advanced blocks are used for specialised research methods that go beyond standard survey questions. Use these when you need to measure trade-offs, loyalty, satisfaction across multiple dimensions or control the order in which questions appear.

Conjoint: Present participants with different combinations of product features and ask them to choose their preferred option. Use this to understand which features matter most to your audience and how they trade off against each other.
Group and Randomization: Group question blocks together and randomise the order they appear in. Use this to reduce response bias when testing multiple concepts, brands or stimuli within the same study.
Matrix: Display a set of related questions in a table format where participants rate each item using the same scale. Use this to collect structured feedback on multiple items efficiently in a single block.
Net Promoter Score: Ask participants how likely they are to recommend a product, service or brand on a scale of 0 to 10. NPS is a standardised metric used to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Media

Media blocks let you embed video or image content directly into the survey. Use these when you want participants to view a piece of media before responding to questions about it, such as in ad testing, creative evaluation or content research studies.

YouTube and Vimeo: Embed a YouTube or Vimeo video directly into the survey for participants to watch before responding. Use this when your media is hosted on either platform and you want to test reactions to video content.
Local Media: Upload and embed your own video or image files directly into the survey. Use this when you want to test unpublished content or assets that are not hosted on an external platform.

Social Media In-Context

Show participants content as it would appear inside a real social media feed. Participants interact with the content naturally before responding to questions. Use this when you want to test how your content performs in a real feed environment before publishing.

Supported platforms are Douyin, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube Shorts.

User Research

User Research blocks are task-based and used to test how people interact with designs, interfaces and content. Use these when you need behavioural data, not just stated opinions, from your participants.

A/B Test: Show participants two versions of a design, concept or piece of content and ask them to compare or choose their preference.
Card Sort: Ask participants to organise a set of items into groups that feel logical to them. Use this to understand how your audience thinks about information and to inform navigation or content structure.
First Click Test: Show participants an interface or design and record where they click first. Use this to evaluate whether key elements are easy to find and whether your layout guides users in the right direction.
5 Second Test: Show participants an image or design for five seconds and ask what they remember or noticed. Use this to evaluate first impressions, brand recall or whether key messages are landing quickly enough.
Preference Test: Show participants two or more design options and ask which they prefer. Use this to compare visual or conceptual directions and identify which resonates most with your audience.
Prototype Test: Let participants interact with a clickable prototype and complete tasks within it. Use this to test usability and identify where users get confused or drop off before development.
Task: Ask participants to complete a specific action on a live website such as finding a product or completing a form. Use this to measure whether real tasks can be completed successfully on a live environment.
Video Response: Ask participants to record a short video as their response instead of typing. Use this when you want richer, more expressive feedback that captures tone and emotion alongside the content of what was said.

Study Configuration

Logic

Logic lets you control which blocks participants see based on their responses. You can set up skip logic to jump over certain blocks, or branching conditions to direct participants to different paths depending on what they answered.

Screening

Screening lets you filter participants before they enter the main study. Set conditions based on responses to early questions to ensure only the right participants continue to the full survey.

Piping

Piping automatically inserts a participant's previous answer into a later question. This makes follow-up questions feel more relevant and personalised without requiring manual configuration for each participant.

Bulk Import of Choices

For questions with a long list of answer options, you can paste all choices at once instead of adding them one by one. This saves time when setting up questions with many options such as brand lists or product categories.

Localisation

You can translate the survey interface into your preferred language. This includes system elements such as buttons and navigation labels, making the study accessible to participants in different regions.

Auto-save

Your progress is saved automatically as you build the study. You do not need to manually save at any point.

Preview

Before publishing, you can preview the full study to check how it will appear to participants and verify that logic and flow work as expected.