# Qualitative Surveys for Opensource user need research

**URL:** <https://discourse.opensourcedesign.net/t/qualitative-surveys-for-opensource-user-need-research/186>\
**Category:** Usability reviews and research\
**Created:** [May 26, 2017, 8:33pm UTC](https://discourse.opensourcedesign.net/t/qualitative-surveys-for-opensource-user-need-research/186 "2017-05-26T20:33:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jdittrich](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.opensourcedesign.net/jdittrich/32/42_2.png) [@jdittrich](https://discourse.opensourcedesign.net/u/jdittrich)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2017, 8:33pm UTC](https://discourse.opensourcedesign.net/t/qualitative-surveys-for-opensource-user-need-research/186/1 "2017-05-26T20:33:43Z")

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I recently came across **qualitative surveys** , a method which uses surveys for collecting _qualitative_ data (Qualitative research deals with the _what, how and why_ of (user) behavior, not about _how many/often_).

So in a _qualitative survey_ you may ask things like:

> Describe a recent positive experience you had when contributing (includes everything you can do on wikidata, including reading, editing, talking to other community members etc.)
> 
> [Free text field]

View a [presentation on qualitative surveys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFpEksCJKqY) here.

Looking at the presented [advantages of qualitative surveys](https://youtu.be/MFpEksCJKqY?t=1034) it seems they are well suited for user need research in (open source) software projects (in contrast to the more fixed-time and cost intensive classic live interview/observation).

In brief:

- You still need to analyze the data with whichever method you prefer (thematic, grounded theory, discourse-analysis…)
- The method is resource-lite (you just need a survey software) and is ethically sound (self administered, very low perceived pressure/easy to drop out if wanted)
- Questions need to be asked and framed very clearly – you can’t react to participants asking a question back (so [pilot](https://youtu.be/MFpEksCJKqY?t=1352) the form!)
- If your tool supports it, you can use images, videos etc. for clarification

I’d be interested in exploring the method and would be happy to collaborate on one or a few small research projects that use the method.