Keywords: user communities / continuous research / participant recruitment / engage / frame / sense / living lab / co-design / people panels / qualitative research / continuous feedback

Communities of people who use a product or service have been framed for a while as the “next step” beyond panels: people who don’t just answer a one-off survey, but collaborate with the brand on an ongoing basis.

When they go wrong, they turn into a ghost group. When they go well, they become a living lab for product, service and experience decisions.

Here we look at when it makes sense to set up a community and what it needs to work, through ENGAGE, FRAME and SENSE.

1. What we mean by a community of people who use your product.

When we say “community”, we mean:

A group of people who take part more than once.
With a certain connection to the brand, product or category.
With spaces and dynamics designed for interaction, not just for answering questions.

It is not:

A rebranded panel.
A mailing list.
A social media group with no clear purpose or moderation.

It makes sense to create a community when there are:

Recurring decisions around the same product/service.
A real appetite to learn continuously.
Capacity to nurture the relationship, not just push out tasks.

2. Engage: recruiting and nurturing so it doesn’t fade out.

2.1. Invite with intention.

Be clear about who it makes sense to have inside (it doesn’t need to “represent everyone”).
Clearly explain what it’s for, what kinds of things will happen, and what they get in return (beyond the incentive).

2.2. Onboarding and care.

A welcome message that sets out the rules of the game: approximate frequency, channels, how to opt out.
A first, simple activity to break the ice.

2.3. Give something back.

The formats of what we research are also changing:

Tell people what has been done with what they shared.
Send occasional small highlights.
Treat the relationship as ongoing, not just “we reach out when we need something”.

3. Frame: which types of activities make sense.

3.1. Continuous exploration.

Quick pulses on ideas, concepts, changes.
Open questions about real use, workarounds, day-to-day problems.

3.2. Light co-design.

Fast tests of prototypes, screens, messages.
Asynchronous activities: photos, screenshots, voice notes about how they currently solve something.

3.3. Following things over time.

Seeing how adoption of a feature evolves, or how perception of a service changes.

A community isn’t for everything. We need to set healthy boundaries: what we do within the community, and what goes into deeper studies outside it.

4. Sense: how to get value without drowning in noise.

4.2. Set rhythms for reading.

Regular reviews (monthly, every two months) to synthesise what’s most relevant.
Short internal digests with key ideas, signals and open questions.

4.3. Connect with other data.

Cross what happens in the community with real usage, metrics and other studies.
Be honest about what this community represents and what it doesn’t.

The idea: use the community as a radar and a lab, not as the only “voice of the customer”..

5. The quantica perspective.

At quantica, we see communities of people who use a product or service as a powerful piece within ENGAGE–FRAME–SENSE when:

ENGAGE looks after the relationship and the value you give back.
FRAME defines which questions and dynamics truly fit there.
SENSE connects what happens in the community to concrete decisions.

They’re not a magic recipe, but when they’re well designed they can bring us much closer to people’s real lives between studies, not only when there’s a project officially “in field”.

Communities of people who use your product: when and how