Qualitative Research

Plain English

Understanding why users do what they do.

Definition

Qualitative researchservice×User ResearchUnderstand user behaviour, validate ideas, and make clearer product decisions with evidence you can act on.Open service→ explores user behaviourglossary×User BehaviourUser behaviour refers to how users interact with a product, including actions, patterns, and decision-making processes.Open glossary term→, motivation, and experience through non-numerical evidence such as interviews, observationglossary×ObservationObservation is a research method where user behaviour is watched and analysed without interference.Open glossary term→, and testing. It is designed to explain why something happens rather than to measure how often.

In practice

Used through interviews, usability testingguide×Usability TestingObserving users complete tasks to identify usability issues, friction, and barriers to success.Open guide→, and observationglossary×ObservationObservation is a research method where user behaviour is watched and analysed without interference.Open glossary term→ to understand why users behave the way they do.

In context

Five people are usually enough to find the problems and never enough to size them. The temptation to report three out of five as sixty per cent is where its credibilityglossary×CredibilityCredibility is the perceived trustworthiness and authority of a product, brand, or system.Open glossary term→ gets lost.

The reality

Often undervalued because it does not produce clear metrics, despite being critical for understanding contextglossary×ContextContext is the set of surrounding conditions that shape how someone behaves and decides, including their goal, their environment, their time pressure, and what happened immediately before. The same action can mean different things in different contexts.Open glossary term→.

Compared with