Design Research and Strategy
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The blog Economic Sociology has a great post on the “evolution” of qualitative sociology. They note, quite rightly, that the notion of “evolution” is implicit in much of social science, even if it has no bearing on the subject matter at hand. Many sociologists place quantitative research “on top” of the research “evolutionary ladder,” even [...]
Categories: qualitative research · sociology
So-called “design thinking” is the new It-Girl of management theory. It purports to provide new ways for managers and companies to provide innovative, creative solutions to old problems. But design thinking alone will not solve these problems because a lack of creativity was never the issue.
The real issue is one of power.
Design is attractive to [...]
We all use personas in everyday social situations. But, like in many design projects, we use to them to typecast instead of to evoke empathy. Personas, like stereotypes, often result in discriminatory behavior. When used in design, personas can create poor design that disempowers and alienate users.
We all like to know how to treat people [...]
Categories: design · ethnography · personas · product design · qualitative research · user experience
Why does sample size not matter in qualitative research? Because of the assumptions that qualitative researchers make, namely, that the social world is not predictable. Qualitative researchers believe that people are not like molecules or other objects; people’s actions are not predictable.
But quantitative researchers DO believe that social activity IS predictable. So when they compare [...]
Categories: Research Methods · qualitative research · quantitative research · user experience