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Qualitative data is OK, but without a really strong understanding of social theory and stuff like desirability bias there's a big risk of not asking the right questions and making misinformed decisions.

One way we've found to limit this risk is by supplementing hypotheses developed through qualitative research with a quantitative approach.

So, ask users what they like/dislike about an experience to formulate an idea of what changes to your app may better the experience, BUT make sure to then TEST those changes using a rigorous method (i.e.: experimentation or A/B testing) to validate that the feedback you're hearing is not just noise...



Agree on the premise. I think theres a spectrum of questions, from those that work great in short simple polls:

"What's frustrating you most right now? Level is boring, level is too difficult, loading time is too slow etc

vs ones that require detail framing and context - for example How would you approach building your army.

The former can work very well, but you need to be careful to get good results out of those less concrete with many factors at play.




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