Marketing Research Services

Minimum Sustainable Recommendations

The Accessibility for Manitobans Act and its related standards require organizations to identify and prevent barriers to accessibility in its operations. For a person who has a physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairment, a barrier is anything that interacts with that impairment in a way that may hinder the person's full and effective participation on an equal basis.

All persons including those with limited fine motor skills, movement impairments, vision loss or low vision, hearing loss barriers and cognitive impairments must be able to participate in surveys conducted on behalf of the client.

Marketing research service providers must incorporate accessibility requirements and practices into the various stages of their services including, but not limited to:

1. Research planning and design (i.e. the specific methods, procedures and questions used to acquire information)
2. Data collection techniques (e.g. interviews, online surveys, face-to-face, phone, etc.)
3. Physical location of study (i.e. ensure venue is accessible to all participants)
4. Published results (i.e. results of the research should be presented in an accessible format)

The contractor must provide customer service training to their employees on The Accessibility for Manitobans Act and the Human Rights Codes as it relates to people with disabilities. The training must include instruction about:

• How to interact and communicate with persons with disabilities, and
• How to interact with persons who use an assistive device or require the assistance of a support person or service animal.

Online surveys must incorporate the following accessibility requirements:

• Allows survey takers using screen magnifiers to successfully complete the survey
• Has the necessary text elements to enable a survey taker to successfully navigate and complete a survey using a screen reader with a text-to-speech (TTS) system.
• Can be completed using voice recognition software.
• Doesn't require a mouse or keyboard to complete.
• The latest version of the WCAG standard should be used to ensure on-line survey themes, colours and content etc. is accessible.

What are the issues?

Many organizations conduct market research to gather information about markets, customers or gauge public opinion on various topics. Persons with disabilities may have a difficult time participating in market research. Conducting inclusive qualitative research will require the service provider to understand the complex challenges persons with disabilities may face in order for them to fully participate in the research. Challenges may include:

• Communicating abstract ideas or complicated questions to participants;
• Inaccessible survey documents and question formats
• Participants unable to express their views and tell of their experiences;
• Physical barriers to participation in the research (e.g. inaccessible location or inaccessible communication methods)

What are the options?

Marketing research service providers are aware of the challenges associated with conducting marketing research that is accessible to all. Numerous techniques have been developed to support accessibility and numerous service providers have taken steps to reduce barriers, making their services more inclusive.

Last Updated: January 2021