[IxDA Discuss] qualitative and quantitative research

[Gretchen Anderson]

Tables. Percentages. Pie Charts. I'm serious.

Sometimes I refer to this as being "scientistic".

I always approach research problems with a somewhat scientific framework
(coding activities, keeping tallies). It's just important to be clear
with yourself that the samples sizes you are dealing with generally mean
that true quant claims are meaningless. And, heck even dangerous,
sometimes.

That said, it's especially helpful for skeptical clients who are quant
jocks. Just make sure to let anyone on the project who actually gets the
difference know what's up.

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Jared Spool
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 3:31 PM
To: christine chastain
Cc: discuss at ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] qualitative and quantitative research


On May 30, 2008, at 12:35 PM, christine chastain wrote:

> Does anyone have any experience with "making" qualitative research as
> quantitative as possible? This is a rather nebulous idea in my mind  
> for the
> moment but I was thinking about something like using images from  
> still or
> video footage and tagging those such that they could be coded in a
> quantitative way. Sort of like a heuristic evaluation on steroids.

We've been doing it for years. Most of our research is based on it.  
It's hard work, but quite doable.

At one point, we had a sign in the office that read: "Scientific  
advancement through mind-numbing manual labor."

Jared

Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
e: jspool at uie.com p: +1 978 327 5561
http://uie.com  Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks

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