“Do consumers want to design unique products on the internet? A ...

4.0 Findings & Discussion
Due <strong>to</strong> the explora<strong>to</strong>ry nature of this research there are no firm hypotheses <strong>to</strong> test,
what follows is an outline of the findings from the empirical research addressing each
of the research questions in turn. The chapter concludes with further discussion
placing these findings in the context of the wider literature in this area before
addressing the limitations inherent within the research.
In <strong>to</strong>tal the questionnaire was completed by 204 visi<strong>to</strong>rs <strong>to</strong> the Threadless “Blog
Forum” (the Threadless name for the public messageboard, the two will be used
interchangeably). As all site visi<strong>to</strong>rs regardless of whether they are guests or
community members have the ability <strong>to</strong> view the Threadless “Blog Forum” the
population is impossible <strong>to</strong> quantify. The “Blog Forum” is separate from the more
common activities of rating, submitting or purchasing <strong>design</strong>s so is unlikely <strong>to</strong> be
viewed by a large number of site visi<strong>to</strong>rs. In <strong>to</strong>tal 191 of these responses were
deemed usable for this survey, the other 13 contained incomplete information. In <strong>to</strong>tal
219 users started the questionnaire giving an 88% (approx) started/completed rate,
this high completion rate suggests that the questionnaire was of an acceptable length
and held respondents interest enough <strong>to</strong> progress them through <strong>to</strong> completion.
Over the seven day participant observation a <strong>to</strong>tal of 422 messageboard threads
(threads begin with a single member posting a title and message which other
members may reply <strong>to</strong>) were viewed and had their <strong>to</strong>pic category logged. Table 3
Adam Fletcher – Do <strong>consumers</strong> <strong>want</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>design</strong> <strong>unique</strong> product on the internet.
2006
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