When we designed Sicché, we had a very clear set of use cases in mind. Asynchronous qualitative research, online discussions with consumers, collection of visual and multimedia stimuli. Textbook stuff. What we hadn't anticipated — and what has genuinely surprised us over the years — is the sheer variety of contexts in which our clients have chosen to use the platform, pushing its flexibility well beyond the use cases we had imagined at the design stage.
Research institutes, corporate insights teams, universities, freelance consultants: everyone has found in Sicché's asynchronous format and modular structure an answer to needs that, sometimes, they hadn't even clearly articulated themselves 😅.
The result is a broad, heterogeneous ecosystem of uses — and, we'll say it, a pretty fascinating one!
Below you'll find an overview of what can be done with Sicché, grouped by thematic area. This is not an exhaustive catalogue. It's a map.
This is probably the most classic area — the one Sicché was originally designed for. But even here, the applications have multiplied.
Concept tests and ideation tests. Sicché is particularly effective when participants need to react to visual stimuli: sketches, mockups, graphic proposals, packaging, naming, infographics, visuals. The platform allows stimuli to be presented in sequence or side by side, spontaneous reactions to be collected, and follow-up questions — projective or associative — to be asked. The advantage over a traditional focus group? Responses don't contaminate each other. Each participant sees the stimulus independently and responds without being influenced by others.
Copy and advertising tests. Whether it's a TV commercial, an Instagram reel, a LinkedIn infographic, or a print ad, Sicché's structure adapts. Participants can engage with the content in their own natural context — not in a cold, sterile focus group facility — and share their reactions in the moment, even hours later, in a more reflective way. This surfaces readings that rarely come up in live sessions.
Tests of audiovisual formats, pilot episodes, podcasts, TV series. An area that pleasantly surprised us: producers, broadcasters, and creative agencies using Sicché to test pilots, episodes, and audio formats. Participants consume the content in their own home environment — which is exactly the context in which they'll eventually consume it — and react in a much more authentic way than they would in a focus group screening room.
UX and usability tests. Sicché works well for testing prototypes, sections of apps or websites, and qualitative A/B tests. It's not a replacement for dedicated UX research tools, but in many cases it's a powerful complement: it allows for the collection of narrative, contextual feedback on an interface, helping researchers understand not just what isn't working, but why — and how the user feels while using it.
If there's one area where Sicché's asynchronous nature truly shines, it's this one. The product or service is tested in a real, non-simulated context, and participants document their experience as it unfolds.
In-home and in real-life tests. Food products, new flavour variants, sports accessories, appliance prototypes, digital products, subscription services: anything that can be delivered or made accessible remotely can become the subject of a study on Sicché. Participants use the product within their daily routine and report on their experience over time — not just once, but across several days or weeks. This captures how habits evolve, how frustrations surface, and how perceptions shift.
Auto-ethnography sessions. Here, participants are asked to become, in a sense, co-researchers. Armed with their smartphones, they document their own lives through photos and videos: how they use an object, where they keep it at home, in which moments they reach for it. Auto-ethnography on Sicché works because the platform is designed to collect multimedia material in an organised, structured way — and because participants feel free to document without the self-consciousness that in-person ethnography can create. And the researcher can always follow up, post additional questions, interact in real time...
Lifestyle and habit diaries. Meals eaten throughout the week, cigarette breaks, commuting routines, ways of living at home, travel habits: longitudinal diaries on Sicché allow researchers to follow participants over time, gathering rich, granular material that no other methodology can capture with the same naturalness. This is where the contradictions between what people say and what they do come to light — the unconscious routines, the deeper meanings people attach to everyday behaviours.
One of the most requested applications — and one that has delivered some of the most interesting surprises in terms of sectors and products studied.
Purchase journey, customer journey, patient journey. From buying an insurance policy to purchasing a property, from choosing a streaming service to managing a chronic condition: Sicché allows researchers to follow participants along their decision-making path as it actually unfolds, not from memory. Participants can be activated at specific stages of the journey (e.g. before active search, during comparison, immediately after purchase) and provide contextual, timely material.
The result is a reconstruction of the journey that is far more faithful to reality than what typically emerges from a retrospective interview.
In-store experience and mystery shopping. Participants are asked to describe — right afterwards, on their phone — the store visit they've just had: what they found, what surprised them, what influenced their decision. In some studies it goes further: participants are asked to film short clips in store (where permitted), documenting their path through the aisles, interactions with staff, moments of hesitation in front of a product. Material worth far more than a thousand transcripts.
Perhaps the least frequently used area — but the one that has surprised us the most, and one of the richest in methodological terms.
Branding, naming, and positioning studies. Sicché integrates associative and projective tools that go beyond rational, declared responses. When working on a brand or a name, the most interesting reactions aren't the ones people already know they have: they're the ones that emerge with a little time, reflection, and lateral stimulus. The asynchronous structure of Sicché — which unfolds over several days — creates exactly that space. Participants don't have to answer straight away: they can process, come back, go deeper.
On top of that, Sicché's associative tools allow researchers to explore the lived experience of brands, products, and services beyond the "classic" rational layer — activating the emotional, instinctive, analogical dimension of consumer behaviour.
Co-creation of products, services, apps, and websites. Here the research design often becomes longitudinal: weeks, months, sometimes an entire year. Participants are iteratively involved at different stages of the development process — reacting to successive prototypes, contributing ideas, flagging issues. It's a model that works particularly well for startups and product development teams who want to build with their users, not just for them.
Two very different areas, united by one common trait: the need to reach people who are geographically or organisationally dispersed.
Employee climate surveys and workplace satisfaction studies. The perceived anonymity of the asynchronous platform — where participants are not "face to face" with an interviewer — can lower defences and surface experiences that in quantitative surveys get compressed into a rating from 1 to 5. Sicché is used to explore employees' lived experience, gather feedback on company initiatives, and support training programmes with moments of reflection and qualitative data collection.
Longitudinal studies across multiple countries. The platform naturally lends itself to international research: no time zone issues, no need to synchronise people from different parts of the world. Participants — in Europe, the Americas, Asia — access the platform at their own times and contribute to the research independently. The result is the ability to run comparative studies on brands, products, and services with participants from different cultures, while maintaining the qualitative depth that a survey could never deliver.
If you'd like to explore how Sicché could fit a specific research project of yours — even one not mentioned here — get in touch.
We're always curious to see how far the tool we built can go 😉
