March 03, 2004

Risks of Quantitative Studies

When I read the summary for Jakob Nielsen's latest AlertBox, I thought it was a joke:

Number fetishism leads usability studies astray by focusing on statistical analyses that are often false, biased, misleading, or overly narrow. Better to emphasize insights and qualitative research.

If anyone has fallen prey to this particular disease, its Nielsen. But, look past the irony and read the article. Its an unusually long and well done entry.