Technology users lead a full and rich life, and Technology User Profile (TUP) reveals it in great detail.
In 1983, when TUP began, IBM PCs were in use within a small segment of the population and Apple’s Macintosh hadn’t yet been released. Since then, technology users are well beyond those few tech-savvy early adopters, and include the full range of people – rich, poor, highly-educated, less-educated, and employed or not. The TUP study continues with its original design – to measure who is using which technology product or service, and provide solid research deeply profile users and usage.
Since that first wave of TUP, the syndicated research study has maintained a balance in multiple dimensions:
- measure the future before it happens so we can help our clients create the future, while also measuring the past to understand both adoption and retirement, both usage and migration from one type of technology to the next
- have a large enough sample size to be useful, while still keeping costs low so many clients can benefit
- survey the full range of users to be representative, from early adopters to laggards, from high to low-socioeconomic, and hyper-techie to basic
- include survey questions about emerging technology products and services, while also including those broadly used
- maintain highly-comparable questions from TUP wave to wave, while also ensuring that questions are relevant
The many waves of TUP are available as TUP Trends Datasets, making it easier than ever to deeply analyze trends.
The TUP Trends Datasets span many key topics: user demographics, technology adoption patterns (early adopters vs. laggards), device combinations, details about the usage profile, brands, and newness of Connected Devices (PCs, Tablets, e-Book Readers, Smartphones, Basic cell phones, and Game Consoles), wearable technology, printers and printing, activities (shopping, entertainment, communication, social networking, cloud storage/sharing, graphics/imaging, information/search, productivity, and personal vs. work-related for a true unified view), and technology spending.
Some of the questions which the TUP Trends Datasets address include:
- How has market penetration shifted over time for PCs, Smartphones, and Tablets, in which combination of devices, and among which market segments?
- How do consumers spend their household dollars on technology and how has this shifted over time?
- Which technology products and services are in active use, and which remain in the installed base longer than others?
- Which groups of consumers are the most-connected, least-connected, or disconnected?
The TUP syndicated survey, conducted continuously since 1983, is based on the full range of technology users – those who connect to the Internet through PCs, Mobile Phones, Tablets, or Game Consoles. It spans consumers, employees, the self-employed, students, and even users of public/shared devices. For more information, please review TUP Datasets or contact MetaFacts.
