Well, here’s a quick and easy way to remember at least the basic difference: quantitative data deals with quantities of things – numbers and measurable information, like how many people visit a website each day. That’s all about quantity (sounds like quantitative, right?).

On the other hand, qualitative data gives you more insight into what people think, feel, and believe – the quality of a thing, person, or situation. Alright that one’s a bit more of a stretch, but it works.

Now let’s get more into the details of qualitative and quantitative research so you know how to conduct each.

What is Qualitative research?

Qualitative research focuses on the human perspective, and usually answers the question “why?” If you want to learn how people perceive their environment, why they hold certain beliefs, or how they understand their problems, you’ll conduct qualitative research.

It’s also all about context. When you’re researching a group, you want to study them in their natural environment. This gives you insights into their behavior, beliefs, opinions, and so on.

How do you conduct qualitative research?

You can conduct qualitative research in a few different ways. Doing interviews, setting up focus groups, giving people open-ended questionnaires, studying photo collections, and observing people in their daily routines are all forms of qualitative data collection.

When you engage with people in these ways, you’re giving the opportunity to give more in-depth, elaborate responses. They’re not just responding “yes” or “no” – they’re telling you what they think.

You can also make observations from photographs or from watching people – things like the way people are looking at each other lovingly, or how two old people might hold hands while they watch TV.

From these observations, you can theorize that those people love each other, are close to each other, know each other well and are comfortable around each other, and so on. Things that are hard to quantify with numbers or measure with figures.

What is Quantitative research?

Quantitative research, on the other hand, involves collecting facts and figures and often results in numerical, structured data. Think data you can put in a spreadsheet and analyze.

Instead of talking to people and getting their opinions, you’re asking them yes or no questions. Instead of asking someone why they do something, you’re finding out what they do, or how many people do that thing, or how often – and so on.

Real quick - what is structured data?

Let's say you're looking at a recipe on your favorite online cooking blog. The structured data are things like the ingredients, the oven temperature, how many calories a serving has, and how long you cook the food. These are all quantifiable (and measurable with numbers/facts) things.

Unstructured data, on the other hand, would include the food blogger's little story about how they discovered or created the recipe, what people have said about how delicious it is, and how much they love the texture of those soft, gooey cookies. You can't measure these data – they're opinion and experience-based.

How do you conduct quantitative research?

You can conduct quantitative research by looking at statistical data (how many people did x), giving people multiple choice or true/false tests, asking them yes/no questions on a survey, and so on.

All in all, you’re trying to answer the question “what” or “how” – what something is, what’s the number of people who order from Amazon every day, how many cars are in that parking lot.

Because of the nature of the data and collection methods, context isn’t a factor in this type of research.

With quantitative research, you’re interested in gathering data that support and prove or disprove a hypothesis or theory you already have.

So instead of observing and talking to people and then forming a theory about what’s going on, you collect your data, and then make conclusions about the validity of your hypothesis based on that data.

Is Qualitative or Quantitative research better?

Alright, so you have these two methods of research – which is better?

Well, most people would argue that they’re better when used together. They’re complementary. Each has its pros and cons (which we’ll discuss), but each method definitely brings important information to the table.

Before we discuss just how they can work together, let’s look at the good and the bad of each.

Pros and Cons of Qualitative research

Let's start with the good. Qualitative research lets you dig deeper into a problem, situation, or context and see why things are happening. You get personal insights from your subjects that can't necessarily come from numbers and figures.

You also have the benefit of context, which can shed light on why a person said certain things or was feeling a certain way (for example if they live in a war zone or in a small village in the middle of nowhere or in the largest city in the world).

On the other hand, qualitative research is more time-consuming and therefore expensive. It takes a lot more time to interview people or set up focus groups than it does to send someone a simple yes/no survey.

It can also be harder to get people to participate in qualitative research. They might not have the time or energy (or desire) to share extensively.

Finally, qualitative research is never really definitive. People are always changing, as are their perceptions of the world around them. So while qualitative data can help inform your hypothesis and fill in gaps in your research, it should usually be supported by quantitative data.

Pros and Cons of Quantitative research

Quantitative research produces hard facts, numbers, and other measurable things. Which can be very useful when you're trying to prove a theory or understand what you're dealing with.

It's also independent of changeable things, like researcher bias or people's current opinions or moods. So quantitative research is repeatable and can be tested and re-tested again and again.

And, practically speaking, quantitative data analysis can be performed much more quickly than qualitative research. You can simply send someone a survey, collect the response data, and dump that data into a spreadsheet or database. From there, running various queries and analyses is easy (assuming you know what you want to ask).

Still, quantitative research is limiting in certain ways. People can't explain their answers to a multiple choice test or yes/no survey (again, lack of context). This means you can't take human factors into account.

So while you have the facts and numbers, you have to decide how to interpret them and use them in your research. (This can be both good and bad.)

How to use Qualitative and Quantitative research together

Sometimes it’s best to start with qualitative research – gather information, talk to people, try to understand their problems/perceptions/opinions, then form a hypothesis.

Then, once you have your hypothesis, use quantitative methods to confirm (or disprove) it with data analysis. This will show you whether the issue/problem/situation exists in general, or was just part of someone’s perception.

But qualitative research/insights can also help round out your structured data/conclusions – if you’ve learned that x people use your site every day, quotes from people about why they use it (as opposed to another company) can teach you more about what’s working (or not) and why.

Examples of Qualitative and Quantitative research

First example

Say you want to learn more about people who visit Paris on vacation. You could look at flight data, museum admission numbers, tourist info to figure out how many people visit Paris each year. But that won’t tell you why they’re visiting.

To learn why, you have to ask people why they wanted to visit Paris, what was their favorite part of the city, what was their experience like as a tourist in Paris, and so on. This will give you insights into what motivates people to travel there in the first place.

Another example

Let’s say you run an e-commerce site that helps people resell their gently used clothing.

You can gather information about how many people sell clothes on your site, how many items the average person has sold, how many people visit the site to buy those clothes, and so on. All that’s right there in the analytics.

But if you want to know why people choose to use your site – either to sell or buy clothes – you’d want to start by conducting an open-ended questionnaire or ask for feedback on a survey.

Also, if you want to know what they like about your site, and how that influences their decision to use it, you could ask them to describe their experience using the site, and so on.

Ultimately, you’ll want to use both qualitative and quantitative research to get the whole picture. And you won’t just use one, and then just use the other. You can go back and forth between the two methods as your research evolves and you gather more information.

This will help you get a more complete picture, form a stronger and deeper hypothesis, and establish both facts about and insights into the situation.

How Donald Rumsfeld’s Infamous Quote Applies to Design

Introduction

It seems like almost every day there is new news of a technology product being subverted in ways their creators never imagined or intended. As a designer of technology services, the consistent barrage of these stories have made me think. How can we as designers prevent unforeseen consequences in our work? While considering this topic, I recalled Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous quote the “Unknown Knowns”. I realized that it serves as a framework to address these consequences.

First, the History of Rumsfeld’s “Unknown Knowns”

In the wake of the September 11th terror attacks, anger drove the United States and its leaders to enact revenge. Afghanistan and Iraq became the focus of retribution due to their history of direct and indirect support of terror groups. As a result, the leaders of the United States argued both countries were to be invaded.

The invasion of Afghanistan was a more straightforward sell. As the Taliban, which controlled the country, also gave shelter to the masterminds of the terror attacks. The justification to invade Iraq was on shakier ground, as the country had no direct involvement in the terror attacks.

American leaders argued that the invasion was justified. American leaders argued that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction and was willing to supply them to terrorists. But this argument was based on flimsy evidence.

On February 12, 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense, was questioned about the flimsy evidence confirming that Iraq was supplying WMDs to terror groups. Donald Rumsfeld dodged the question by giving an infamous response:

Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. — Via Wikipedia

Of course, the reply was cynical, and Rumsfeld avoided the real reason for the invasion. It also served to recuse him from the catastrophe that he brought to the Iraqi people and American service members.

The quote stuck in the back of my head. I did not know what to do with it, but occasionally I would dig it up and reread it. Finally, the quote started to have relevance to me as I began to think about it regarding design.

How Rumsfeld’s Quote Applies to Design

Known Knowns

“There are things we know we know.”

The proper human-centered design process requires user input and feedback. Designers and user researchers implement research to understand user problems. In return, they discover the success criteria to solve them. Research methodology is diverse. It can include user interviews, field observations, surveys, and quantitative tracking. These are critical to understanding issues and their solutions. When a designer implements a user researched design process, their work becomes based on the things that they know they know.

If a designer has not adequately researched the problem or understands if the solution benefits the end user, then the designer is operating in the Known Unknowns.

Known Unknowns

“That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know”

As designers, Known Unknowns occur when we know we have not fully implemented a human-centered design process. We know that we either don’t understand the root of the problem, or we didn’t spend enough time testing solutions. We know that our potential solution is lacking informed choices. As designers, it’s critical for us to raise this issue and initiate action to answer these unknowns.

Launching a design without answering a Known Unknown can potentially jeopardize the project, the company, the end user, and possibly yourself. As a designer, you need to explain the open questions, because you don’t want to waste everyone’s time and money, and don’t want to cause harm to yourself or others.

Unknown Unknowns

“The ones we don’t know we don’t know”

Next comes two difficult quadrants. First the Unknown Unknowns, how do you find out Knowns that you don’t even know? I don’t know the answer, but I do think as designers we can address this issue by finding new ways to expand our perspectives.

An accessible way to increase our perspective is to read more and read beyond articles on tech/design. Science fiction books might be a great genre, as Sci-Fi often speculates about the future. Sci-Fi dwells on the negative as much as it features positive aspects of technological change.

As designers, we also need to talk to people to be comfortable with research. One way to get more comfortable with people is to meet people outside of our comfort zone and maybe even talk to strangers. Another idea is to walk a different path to school or work. Also, travel is an excellent way to reset.

In the tech industry, we tend to view our work through a positive lens, focused on its benefits (designers included). But we must also look at the negatives of our products and services. To find negative consequences of our work, as I previously mentioned, we must break out of our daily routine. We must approach our process with new and different methodologies. Otherwise we will be blind to unknown and unintentional consequences.

Unknown Knowns

“Things you think you know that it turns out you did not know”

The “Unknown Knowns” is the trickiest quadrant to address. How do you find out that what you think you know is actually wrong? It’s a contradiction, and like all contradictions, it’s difficult to resolve.

As designers, we sometimes think that we are all-knowing, especially when it concerns end users. But designers are not superhuman. So how do we as designers address thinking we know something when we don’t understand it?

Similar to Unknown Unknowns, I believe that we can address this problem by getting out of our groupthink. We need to get outside of our social circles. We need to expand our interests and things we do. We need to talk with people with different experiences than our immediate social circles.

At work, we need to sponsor hiring people that are not part of our network. We also need to hire people with varying vantage points. As designers, we also need to meet different team members, people on entirely separate teams. Their experiences will inform us about how a product and service is or can be used in ways that we as designers cannot imagine.

Conclusion

User research is the core of human-centered design. Human-centered design is a framework that guides designers to create products that solve user needs.

To understand user needs, designers must first define the problem by practicing a user research methodology. The framework allows designers to identify potential solutions based on qualitative and quantitative input instead of solely on their personal assumptions.

Furthermore, to work towards preventing Unknown Unknowns and Unknown Knowns we must expand beyond our comfort zones. We can achieve this by reading more. We can connect with people beyond our social circles, and hiring people with different experiences. The goal is for us as designers to broaden our perspectives to preempt our Unknowns.

Errol Morris and The Unknown Known

If you are still curious about this topic, Errol Morris explored the quote, its meaning, and its speaker in detail. He published a three-part series for the New York Times and directed The Unknown Known. The trailer is an amazing preview of Rumsfeld’s ability to spin language and meaning.

The Certainty of Donald Rumsfeld (Part 1)
_Four kinds of persons: zeal without knowledge; knowledge without zeal; neither knowledge nor zeal; both zeal and…_opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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A practical guide on how to host a UX lunch and learn event in your office

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The speed of innovation in Samsung is part of its culture, and its fast pace makes it challenging to keep stakeholders constantly up to date with what is happening. As a user experience (UX) researcher, this is my job to do.

Our UX team hosted a lunch and learn event, and my colleagues in UX research and I co-presented our top user insights from Samsung usability studies.

It doesn’t matter how many people are in your office. An event where people can eat and listen to some interesting ideas and insights about users will always make the effort pay-off. In this article, I’ll share a few things I’ve tried that worked. You may need to adjust it based on your own company.

Why UX lunch and learn?

You can reach out to more stakeholders all at once

In another post, I explained how useful it is to invite stakeholders to usability testings and field studies. However, it is not possible to have them all participate in such activities.

Not all the stakeholders are available at the same time, and even if they are, you might not be able to have them all in the usability lab or in the field. Other than that, there are some stakeholders that are not directly involved with product design and development, and asking them to take part as an observer in usability studies might be irrelevant.

Due to these limitations, we should think of other ways to increase user-awareness among stakeholders.

You help everyone in the office develop empathy for the customers they are serving

Almost everyone agrees that creating a good user experience can positively impact customer loyalty to the brand and eventually increase your revenue. But good UX design is not enough. The hard part is to enable people in your organization to deliver that great experience. This is not possible just by telling people what to do.

You need to show them how the user is experiencing the product, what the pain points are, and what the user wants to achieve. This enables stakeholders to develop empathy toward the user and avoid making poor decisions right at the top.

Among the different ways that I tried to build empathy for the user, hosting a lunch and learn event seems to have advantages that exceed others.

You can be a user advocate without pointing fingers

When it comes to usability test reports, it is easy to just show what is not working. But then it is also easy to create hard feelings among different stakeholders, and point fingers and blames others. This becomes more important in larger companies, as no one benefits when the UX hits the fan!

Presenting what is not working by showing how users struggle to a group of stakeholders creates a low-pressure environment for stakeholders to see the problems, without placing the blame on them.

Planning a UX lunch and learn

Invite everyone in the office — even the security guy

This is very important, especially when you are in a B2B enterprise or your company does not deal directly with the end user. It is so easy to forget who we are designing for.

It is important for everyone in the office to learn who are the actual people they design and develop for, and what are their needs and goals.

Send the invitation early

People are always busy with meetings, workshops, travels and so on. Make sure you give them a few weeks’ notice about the event, so they know early on. Additionally, use other methods such as posters in the office to let everyone know this event is coming up.

Ask your office coordinator to help you with logistics

There are a bunch of things that need to be done to host such events. Ordering food, setting up the room, and more. If you have dedicated people for it then great! Otherwise, do it yourself. You are the user’s hero!

What to avoid?

Avoid trashing your product and the company

Be absolutely honest, but try to avoid destroying the product that you are critiquing. Let your research speak out. Do not make conclusions. Do not point fingers to a group of stakeholders.

Avoid using videos with low sound quality

People might tolerate a low quality video, but no one wants to hear noises you recorded from the fan in the usability room. Pick the ones that communicate the message and are easy on the eyes and ears.

What to include?

Make it simple, since not everyone is on the UX team

Think of developers who work more with if statements than users. Think of engineers, people in marketing, and project managers.

Even people in your UX team might not know everything about the feature you are explaining. Make it simple and understandable.

Include positive stuff too

Lunch and learn is not all about showing the problems and making people feel bad about the product! You must also show the features that are working well. You need to keep the positive vibes going. This helps people to continue doing what is working well.

Divide each feature/topic/project into three slides

Here is how I would make the slides:

1. Context
   Briefly show and tell what the feature or project was about. And what method you used for testing, or any particular things you want to mention about design features.
   Keep it brief though, and avoid UX jargon
2. User
   Here is where you show the video of usability testing, a user journey map, or analytics.
3. Insight
   This is where you talk about what you learned and interesting insights and ideas.

Things to consider

Do a test run of your lunch and learn

Think about it. If you are in a large office and you are asking for 50–100 stakeholders give you 30 minutes of their time, you better make this worth it.

Before this, try to ask one of the stakeholders who is not on the UX team (maybe from the marketing people, or developers) to come and sit with you and listen to what you have to say. If it makes sense to them, then great.

If not, then iterate your content until it does make sense to a non-UX person.

Tell them why this is important

Have a slide in the beginning and tell people why you think learning about users early and often is important, and how it does positively affect the product.

Make it interactive, you are not giving a lecture

Remember, this is not a lecture. Make some time for comments and questions after each part. Be mindful of time, but let the discussion go when it does.