Company expands global capabilities of Sparq – the market’s leading research technology for online community panels.

New York, November 19, 2009 – Vision Critical® has rolled out their Globalization Expansion Pack for Sparq – the market’s most widely adopted online research platform, currently used by 25% of the world’s top brands. It incorporates amplified language capabilities, new visual questions and enhanced flexibility of the application through a new custom development framework.

The new features include expanded language support for surveys and multi-lingual support for communities, enabling clients to connect with online community panel members in the language of their choice. Furthermore, the Globalization Extension Pack provides users with greater control during the survey authoring and translation process, as well as a brand new multi-lingual reporting feature that allows users to choose the languages for viewing survey reports.

“The demand for global research is rising – and with it comes the demand for effective tools to tackle that research,” says Gordon McNeill, Vision Critical’s Vice President of Product Innovation. “We are pleased to provide researchers worldwide with a multi-lingual and respondent-friendly platform to field visual surveys, interactive panels and discussion-based communities in the language of their choice.”

In addition to the global language expansion, Vision Critical has continued its creation of interactive visual question types – the most recent being the Scale Slider Grid and two new Visual Grid question types. The visual questions, available to all Sparq clients, help users create more engaging surveys, which increase response rates from panelists and produce richer insights. Add to that Sparq’s expanded custom solutions for everything from surveys to communities within the development framework.

Sparq is Vision Critical’s all-in-one research tool: from sampling to survey creation to reporting. It boasts nearly 3000 global users and close to 21 million respondents. Every month, an average of 2000 Sparq studies are created and deployed across the world.