How do you test and validate mobile app design hypotheses using qualitative and quantitative feedback?

1 Qualitative feedback

Qualitative feedback is the type of feedback that gives you insights into the thoughts, feelings, preferences, and motivations of your users. It helps you understand why they behave the way they do, what problems they face, and what goals they have. Qualitative feedback can be collected through methods such as user interviews, surveys, focus groups, usability testing, or user testing. Qualitative feedback can help you generate and refine your design hypotheses, as well as identify any gaps or issues in your design.

2 Quantitative feedback

Quantitative feedback is the type of feedback that gives you data and metrics about the behavior and performance of your users. It helps you measure how they interact with your app, how often they use it, how long they stay, how much they spend, and how satisfied they are. Quantitative feedback can be collected through methods such as analytics, A/B testing, or user feedback ratings. Quantitative feedback can help you test and validate your design hypotheses, as well as evaluate the impact and effectiveness of your design.

3 Balancing qualitative and quantitative feedback

Both qualitative and quantitative feedback are valuable and complementary sources of information for your mobile app design. However, they have different strengths and limitations, and they should be used appropriately and wisely. Qualitative feedback can help you explore and discover new ideas, but it can also be subjective and biased. Quantitative feedback can help you confirm and optimize existing ideas, but it can also be misleading and incomplete. Therefore, you should balance both types of feedback and use them in different stages of your design process.

4 Using qualitative feedback to generate hypotheses

One way to use qualitative feedback is to generate hypotheses about your users' needs, wants, problems, and goals. Hypotheses are educated guesses or assumptions that you make based on your research and observation. They help you frame your design problem and guide your design solution. For example, you might have a hypothesis like "Users want to save time and money when booking travel" or "Users need a simple and intuitive way to manage their finances". To generate hypotheses, you can use qualitative methods such as user interviews, surveys, or focus groups to ask open-ended questions, listen to user stories, and observe user behavior.

5 Using quantitative feedback to test hypotheses

Another way to use quantitative feedback is to test hypotheses about your users' behavior and performance. Testing hypotheses helps you validate or invalidate your assumptions and measure the outcomes of your design. For example, you might have a hypothesis like "Adding a chat feature will increase user engagement" or "Reducing the number of steps in the checkout process will increase conversion rates". To test hypotheses, you can use quantitative methods such as analytics, A/B testing, or user feedback ratings to track key metrics, compare different versions, and collect user feedback.

6 Using qualitative and quantitative feedback to iterate and improve

Finally, you can use both qualitative and quantitative feedback to iterate and improve your mobile app design. Iteration is the process of making changes and refinements to your design based on the feedback you receive. It helps you learn from your mistakes, discover new opportunities, and enhance your user experience. For example, you might use qualitative feedback to identify user pain points, frustrations, or suggestions, and use quantitative feedback to measure the impact of your changes on user behavior and satisfaction. To iterate and improve, you can use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to collect, analyze, and act on feedback.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?