Research-Based Findingss Rather Than Preconceived Notions Form the Core of Grounded Theory
User research often sails off course due to preconceived notions and biases hidden within researchers, teams, or organizations. To ensure your compass stays pointed true north, embrace grounded theory – a proven social research method that keeps your solutions rooted in the real world.
In this informal guide, we'll show you how grounded theory, a qualitative research methodology, helps designers and researchers make kickass user-centered decisions.
Grounded theory differs from other research methods as it doesn't begin with a fixed hypothesis or framework. Instead, insights arise naturally from observation and participant interviews. Unlike surveys or usability testing, which we use to validate assumptions, grounded theory helps uncover unexpected patterns, emotions, and motivations-revealing a deeper understanding of the users' psyche.
Setting Sail: Bypass Biases with Grounded Theory
The importance of grounded theory comes from its ability to combat not only preconceived notions but also to serve as an effective tool against the various forms of bias that can creep into research at any stage. Here are some common examples:
- Availability bias: This occurs when research results become skewed because the available participants lack the required background. It may occur when participants exaggerate their experience or when organizations prefer to use their existing customers for research.
- Confirmation bias: Researchers accept positive feedback while ignoring or downplaying negative feedback.
- Cultural bias: Results are distorted by the researchers' cultural beliefs or attitudes.
- Framing effect: Non-neutral question wording influences responses towards an answer suggested in the question.
- Hawthorne Effect: People change their behavior when they know they're being watched, providing overly cautious or insincere answers.
- Social desirability bias: Responses tend towards more socially acceptable norms, seen in market research when figures for toothpaste usage exceed toothpaste manufactured! Respondents exaggerate the socially desirable habit of cleaning their teeth.
Navigating the Storm: Ask Open-Ended Questions
Fortunately, avoidance of bias becomes simpler when you ask open-ended questions, typically taking the form of "What are...", or "How do you...", such as:
- How do you usually plan your day?
- How do you decide what products or services to buy online?
- How do you measure progress or success in your work or personal projects?
- How do you cope with stress or frustration?
- How do you learn new skills or information?
- What are some goals or challenges in your current role or situation?
- What are some of the features or benefits that you look for in a product or service?
- What are some of the sources or influences that shape your opinions or decisions?
- What frustrations or pain points do you encounter when using a product or service?
- What are some of the things that motivate or inspire you?
Remember, it is still possible to introduce bias into these questions, but you do not prepare these questions in advance. They form part of a more natural dialogue between the researcher and participants.
Full Ahead: Starting Your Grounded Theory Journey
The grounded theory approach begins with a research question that focuses on the problem domain's pivotal aspects in persona development, for example. Choose a question:
- Broad enough to include primary user needs, behaviors, and peripheral issues.
- Not overly broad to avoid excessive research effort.
Here's an example of an impactful research question for a fitness app for busy professionals: "What are the primary health and fitness challenges that busy professionals face balancing exercise with work and personal life?"
With this question, you'll explore key user needs like time management, exercise preferences, behaviors, related issues like diet, stress or sleep, and more.
Mapping the Route: Stages of Grounded Theory
Grounded theory consists of several key stages, although in many situations you can take a leaner, more efficient approach:
- Begin with data collection and the simple "open coding" technique, where you categorize your research findings after each research session.
- Continue data analysis to identify patterns, emotions, and motivations that emerge.
- When further data collection no longer produces new categories, you've reached saturation, indicating additional research is unlikely to uncover new insights.
Following this streamlined process allows you to design solutions addressing users' real problems-rather than those based on assumptions. So let your research guide you, and you'll sail past ordinary to remarkable discoveries.
Happy sailing and open-coding!
[1] Corbin, J. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. SAGE Publications.
[2] Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. G. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: grounded theory procedures and techniques. SAGE Publications.
[3] Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory: a practical guide through qualitative analysis (3 ed.). SAGE Publications.
Grounded theory, a qualitative research methodology, helps combat biases during user research by asking open-ended questions and starting with questions focused on the problem domain's pivotal aspects. Its streamlined process involves open coding, identifying patterns, and reaching saturation, ensuring solutions are based on real users' needs rather than assumptions. Embracing grounded theory can lead to remarkable discoveries in education-and-self-development through personal-growth, such as learning new skills and understanding user psyche in interaction design. Data-and-cloud-computing can further assist in organizing and analyzing this qualitative data for better technology-based solutions in designing user-centered decisions.
