How Expectations Work
At the beginning of a test, before respondents see the brand, product, or experience they are evaluating, they are asked to describe their greatest hope and greatest concern for that experience. Rather than selecting from a predefined list, respondents answer in their own words through an open-ended question.
In general the question follows this format:
“When [action] for a [product, service], what is your greatest hope and what is your greatest concern?”
Note: The question includes variable content and is tailored to match the test goal.
At the end of the test, after respondents have spent time in the experience or on the page, they are asked whether the experience met, somewhat met, or did not meet the hopes and concerns they shared earlier. Their original responses are piped into this follow-up question so they can evaluate the experience against their own expectations.
How results are generated
WEVO uses AI to summarize and group responses into common themes based on what participants say in their own words. Analysts then review those themes and categorizations to ensure they accurately reflect the feedback. They may refine groupings, identify emerging themes, and review uncategorized responses where needed.
Representative quotes are also selected to help illustrate each theme. These quotes are chosen to reflect the broader pattern in the data, so users should not expect to see every individual response displayed in the report.
How to interpret results
The Expectations Gap chart displays the most common themes respondents mentioned in the opening question, before seeing the experience. These themes are generated from open-ended responses and summarized into categories after the survey is complete. The themes appear on the left side of the chart.
As a general guideline, only themes mentioned by a meaningful number of respondents are displayed in the chart.
The length of each bar represents how many respondents mentioned that theme. Within each bar:
- Green shows the number of respondents who felt the experience met that expectation
- Yellow shows the number who felt it somewhat met that expectation
- Red shows the number who felt it did not meet that expectation
The qualitative statements shown below the chart provide additional context for why respondents evaluated the experience that way.
In general, a bar that is mostly green, or green and yellow, suggests that the experience is broadly addressing that expectation. A bar with a larger proportion of red may indicate an area where the experience is falling short for respondents.