The Confirmit Annual MR Software survey, now in its eighth year, is conducted annually by meaning ltd, an independent research technology consultancy in London, UK. The survey provides a unique set of information and insights into the interplay of technology and methodology within the market research industry. It provides a snapshot of current usage and attitudes and predictions from practitioners, and identifies trends from a number of tracking questions that are asked repeatedly each year. This year (and in several previous years), the survey has been kindly sponsored by Confirmit, and is therefore known as the Confirmit Market Research Software Survey. The survey comprises a sample of 230 market research companies globally, selecting individuals who are responsible for, influential in or aware of technology decisions within their company. The sample is drawn to ensure representation of three global regions: North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, balanced to represent the relative amount of research carried in these regions, according to figures published by ESOMAR. The survey consists of a self-completion interview on the Web, comprising around sixty questions and timed to last approximately fifteen minutes. Sample is obtained from a variety of sources:

• Participants who agreed to be re-contacted from the previous year’s survey
• Sample compiled by meaning ltd including
• Sample provided by the survey’s sponsor, Confirmit
• Sample from 2009 and 2010 surveys

We estimate the response rate (measured as the number of effective invitations issued, after the removal of bounce-backs, divided by the number of complete interviews achieved) to be 6% (compared with 10% in 2010). However, our invitation makes it clear that the survey is concerned with research technology, and is addressed to those who are decision-makers or influential in technology decisions, so we are aware that there is an unknown level of screening out taking place before any response is recorded. A truer measure of response would be among those eligible to participate (senior technology practitioners within research companies), and that we are unable to calculate. The survey has succeeded in including a large proportion of senior people within the target group from bona fide research companies. Furthermore, many of the trends measured by the survey show a high level of consistency with previous years, so we do consider that the findings are of value. However, due to the nature of the sample, as in pervious years, we do not attempt to estimate a margin of error, and advise caution in the interpretation of the findings. This report concludes with an analysis of the sample composition, in Chapter 11 (p, 72) The 2011 Survey, as in previous years, comprises a mixture of tracking questions and new questions for that year, which explore topics of the moment. For 2011, we have explored four such topics: Handling unstructured text (Chapter 3, p. 22), ‘New MR’ methods (Chapter 4, p. 30), Smartphone usage on conventional online surveys (Chapter 5, p. 42) and Data Visualization (Chapter 6, p. 46). Tracking questions follow in Chapters 6 onwards (starting on p. 46).