Methodology
One platform. Every way to run online research.
Online communities are not a single method. They are a flexible family of approaches that can be shaped to almost any research objective, duration, scale, or budget. Here is how researchers use incling.
(community overview showing multiple methodology types)
Methodology
Pre and post tasks
A pre or post task is the simplest form of an online community. It is a short-burst asynchronous environment that runs alongside a live research event.
Before a focus group, workshop, or in-depth interview, participants complete guided tasks that immerse them in a topic, surface unbiased initial reactions, and ensure they arrive informed and ready to contribute.
After the session, the platform remains open for follow-up tasks, concept ranking, or final reflection. The result is richer live sessions. Participants who have already thought about a topic produce more considered and less reactive responses in the room.
Because the community runs on the same platform as any other incling study, there are no additional tools to learn, no imports, and no file management. Participants join once and move between asynchronous and live tasks without friction.
Depth: 1 to 3 days typical · Great for qual pre-work alongside any live method
Full methodology pageMethodology
Pop-up communities
A pop-up community usually has a defined start, end, and a specific objective. It can run for as little as 24 hours or for a few months, depending on the complexity of the question and the depth of insight required.
Pop-up communities are particularly well suited to research questions that need qualitative depth but do not have the time or budget for traditional qualitative fieldwork. Unlike a survey or a single-session focus group, a pop-up community allows participants to respond in their own time, revisit their thinking, and react to each other.
The result is a richer, more considered dataset that reflects how people actually think rather than how they perform under observation.
Duration: 24 hours to a few months · From quick sprints to detailed study
Full methodology pageMethodology
AI-moderated communities
Rather than moderation being a bottleneck, or a cost that makes certain projects unfeasible, incAI can moderate across all task types in over 30 languages, around the clock.
Once your tasks are set up, you brief incAI with your research objectives and provide any probes or lines of inquiry you want it to draw from. It then reads every response as it comes in, crafts a relevant qualitative probe, and posts it on your behalf, in the participant's language, at the right moment.
This is not a replacement for expert human moderation. Human moderators bring interpretive judgement, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to follow an unexpected thread that no brief anticipated. But for large-scale studies, multi-market panels, or projects where speed is the priority, incAI's moderation ensures that every participant receives a considered follow-up rather than being left unengaged.
Researchers can review, adjust, and override at any point. The moderation is automated. The thinking remains yours.
Powered by incAI
incAI handles transcription, translation, probe suggestions, and full auto-moderation. More on how it works on the incAI page.
Available in 30+ languages · Moderation around the clock
Full methodology pageMethodology
Long-term communities and customer panels
A long-term community runs over months or years, bringing back the same participants to engage with new questions as they arise. At its most powerful, it becomes a permanent insight asset that does not require recruitment every time a new question emerges.
Long-term communities are used in two main ways. Research agencies use them to maintain an ongoing panel that can be activated for client briefs quickly and cost-effectively. Brands and in-house insight teams use them as customer advisory communities: a standing group of customers, users, or stakeholders available for any research question that comes up in the business cycle.
The incling platform supports communities of any size, from a tightly managed group of 50 specialists to a panel of several thousand. Built-in panel management tools allow researchers to segment participants, control task visibility, track engagement, and maintain sample quality over time.
incling's consultants are also available to help design, manage, and run long-term communities for clients who want the insight without the operational overhead.
Duration: months to years · From 50 specialists to thousands
Full methodology pageMethodology
Online research hub
Rather than setting up a new community from scratch for every project, the Hub gives teams a permanent home on the incling platform from which any number of studies can be launched throughout the year.
This is an ideal solution if you know you will have a number of projects running with distinct groups of participants across a year and want one space to house all of your research. Access to a Hub is structured around a package of research days; there are no restrictions on how those days are used.
You can run a three-day pop-up concept test in Germany, a two-week diary study in the UK, and a video focus group programme in Brazil, all from the same environment, without re-negotiating a contract for each one.
For research agencies, the Hub removes the operational friction of client projects. For in-house teams, it makes insight faster and more responsive. The Hub also simplifies stakeholder access and confidentiality: clients and internal stakeholders can be given controlled visibility into relevant projects.
One hub, unlimited projects · Research days model with no task restrictions
Full methodology pageMethodology
Video focus groups and interviews
The incling Live Chat tool brings live qualitative research directly into the online community environment. Video focus groups and one-to-one in-depth interviews can be run from inside any incling community.
There is nothing new for participants to download and nowhere else for them to go. Every session is automatically recorded, transcribed, and translated. AI thematic summaries are available within minutes of the session ending. Simultaneous human translation is available for any session where international teams need to follow along live.
When live research is combined with asynchronous tasks in the same study, the result is a richer research design where each phase builds on the previous one, rather than two separate tools producing two separate datasets that need to be reconciled later.
Up to 10 participants
Video feed for up to 10 participants per session, with a virtual backroom for observers.
Auto-transcription
Every session is automatically recorded, transcribed, and translated, with AI thematic summaries ready within minutes.
Simultaneous translation
A built-in human translation channel so international teams can follow sessions live in their own language.
Methodology
Multi-market research
Multi-market research on incling is not a separate product. It is what happens when you run any incling community across more than one market at the same time.
Available in 30+ languages, the researcher monitors all communities from a single hub view. Translations appear alongside original responses automatically.
For moderation, you can provide experienced native human moderators from incling's extensive network, or lean on incAI to auto-moderate in local language around the clock. For live research, incling's simultaneous translation channel means focus groups and in-depth interviews can be observed by international clients in real time, regardless of the language being spoken in the session.
All text responses and transcripts are translated so you can see the raw data, and fed into AI analytic tools so you can query and view summaries across markets.
92
countries researched
30+
languages supported
UK · US
EU · South Africa
2013
remote-first since founding
30+ languages · Single hub, multiple markets · Native moderation available
Full methodology pageRead more
Detailed methodology guides
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