Qualitative research
Qualitative research is the study of customer attitudes, motivations and behaviours through non-numerical methods such as interviews, observation and open-ended feedback, aimed at understanding why people act as they do.
Also known as Qual research
How is qualitative different from quantitative research?
Quantitative research measures how many and how much with numbers; qualitative research explains why and how with words and observation. Quant tells you a metric moved, qual tells you the reason.
Strong teams pair them: qual to form hypotheses and understand causes, quant to test how widespread they are.
What are common qualitative methods?
Customer interviews, usability tests, open-ended survey questions, support and sales call reviews, diary studies and contextual observation.
What is the main limitation of qualitative research?
Small samples mean you cannot generalise a percentage from it. Its strength is depth and explanation, not statistical representativeness, which is why it is best paired with quantitative signals.
Put it into practice
Qualitative research, in brief
Qualitative research studies customer attitudes, motivations and behaviours through non-numerical methods such as interviews, observation and open-ended feedback, to understand why people act as they do.
Use qualitative research to understand causes and form hypotheses, and quantitative research to measure how widespread those patterns are. Most decisions benefit from both.
Related terms
- Thematic analysisThematic analysis is a qualitative research method for identifying, grouping and interpreting recurring patterns, or themes, across a body of unstructured feedback such as interviews, tickets or open-text survey responses.Read more
- Continuous discoveryContinuous discovery is the practice of maintaining a regular, ongoing habit of talking to customers and testing ideas throughout product development, rather than doing research only in occasional big projects.Read more
- Research repositoryA research repository is a centralised, searchable store of customer research and evidence, from interviews and tickets to survey results and the insights drawn from them, that a whole organisation can draw on.Read more
- Customer insightA customer insight is a non-obvious, evidence-backed understanding of customer behaviour or motivation that can change a decision, distinct from a raw data point or a single piece of feedback.Read more
- Customer interviewA customer interview is a one-to-one conversation with a current or potential customer, used to understand their goals, problems and behaviour in their own words, usually by asking about specific things they have done.Read more
- Discussion guideA discussion guide is the plan for a research interview: the goal, the topics to cover in order, and the questions and follow-ups to ask, written so every interview in a study covers the same ground.Read more
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