Hi ,
Quantitative data is the way to go if you want to know what happened or how much, but numbers will rarely tell you why.
Quantitative data can tell you that,
on average, each user spent 37 minutes using your data product. But if you want to know whether they did so because your product was useful, or because it was so complicated they spent that time reading the "Help" page before giving up in despair, then you're going to be out of luck.
The only way to gather that information is by looking beyond the numbers and speaking to the users
themselves.
Here's the thing...
When business leaders talk of being data-driven, most are referring to using numbers to make decisions, with non-numeric or qualitative information considered second-rate.
Yet, numbers only tell half the story. And making decisions based on numbers without understanding the why is just another type of guessing.
To be truly data-driven, decisions need to be based on all the facts - be they quantitative or qualitative.
Because qualitative data is data, too. It's just a different kind.
Talk again soon,
Dr Genevieve Hayes.
p.s. I recently had the opportunity to talk to Brian T O'Neill about how data scientists can use qualitative data to improve the design and usability of their data products.
You can listen to our conversation at the link below: Episode 44: Designing Data Products People Actually Want to Use
