We sometimes have clients come to us who want a rich, descriptive understanding of their users’ behaviour and motivations, whilst at the same time expecting statistics and hard figures to go with this. If time and budget had no limits this could most definitely be achieved. However, we often find ourselves giving clients a mini rundown of the limitations and benefits of each approach so they are in the best position to understand our proposed solution.

The Pros:

The Cons:

Understanding the why’s and the process of something is essentially what qualitative research can unveil, however if it is numbers and statistics that you are after then quantitative is the best approach to take. It would not make sense to run a series of in-depth interviews with a focus on user needs and then use this information to say 66% of users want X and 25% of users don’t need Y. It simply does not make sense. What you can do is provide a summary of the users’ mental model, the process they take when approaching a task and the information they need to support this. Or map out the customer journey that highlights user needs during each stage.

While it is generally agreed that each approach is distinct and has unique properties, they are often used to complement each other. For example, when a quantitative analysis identifies that the customer conversion rate has dropped 30% in a re-designed website, it often uses qualitative research (i.e. moderated user testing) to understand why. Similarly, when a quantitative survey is delivered, the questions it asks have most likely been informed from qualitative research preceding it (i.e. depth interviews).

While there is much debate around which is the better research technique and why, what isn’t attested is that the most accurate results occur when a triangulated approach is taken – that is, when they are used together.