Reflection Theme 4

This week we have been discussing the interesting topic that is qualitative methods. The topic of choice is very broad, and it’s certainly open to debate as exactly which methods should be included here. For me, qualitative methods hold a special place, since I’ve had quite a lot of experience of using these methods. Partly in school during courses such as Evaluation Methods and Interaction Design, but even more during my summer job at Antrop. I’ve tried several different methods during this time, and noticed that if you do it right, qualitative methods can be very rewarding. For example, during Interaction Design, me and a fellow student were developing a system and we had constructed a basic mock-up that showed our general design ideas and concepts. This we then showed to a person of the target audience, well versed in the subject. We spent two hours with him showing him our mockup and discussing it back and forth and received tons of information and ideas for improvement. So when it comes to things like design research and evaluation, qualitative methods are powerful indeed.

This stated, it’s important to know the limits of these methods. One thing you always have to think about is that the result of these cannot and should not be used to point at general behavior or attitudes etcetera. The numbers of participants are almost always too few to draw these kinds of general conclusions. So it is generally inadvisable to use these methods to find out something that can be stated as statistical facts. This is of course nothing new, but still important to ponder.

What you can do however, is use these methods in a mix. If you for instance combine some quantitative method with for instance, interviews, you can get a real good insight into the subject. You find out who does what, and also you get an insight into why this is. I feel a bit sad about that the power of this mix is used quite sparingly (often due to economical and/or other factors). Why I feel sad is because a lot of decisions are made singularly on statistical grounds, without the knowledge of what is the cause of the problem and vice versa. This is a huge waste of resources in my opinion, and hopefully we will see different approaches in the future. That’s all for this week’s reflections!

//Love Larsson