- From: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 06:36:48 -0500
- To: "Lachlan Hunt" <lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au>
- Cc: "Steven Faulkner" <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, "David Poehlman" <david.poehlman@handsontechnologeyes.com>, public-html@w3.org, "W3C WAI-XTECH" <wai-xtech@w3.org>
Hi Lachlan, > until we have objective > evidence to verify his claims, all we have is speculation and > hypotheses; and speculation about usability problems is not a reason to > avoid doing a usability study that would verify that. - Quantitative research often "forces" responses or people into categories that might not "fit" in order to make meaning. - Qualitative research, on the other hand, sometimes focuses too closely on individual results and fails to make connections to larger situations or possible causes of the results. Research and data would be interesting to have, but what would it prove? Either "quantitative" or "qualitative" may reflect the interests of those conducting or benefiting from the research and the purposes for which the findings will be applied. Basing important decisions on either has drawbacks. Criterion, methodology, etc would be a huge bone of contention. It has been known for some time that some scientists skew their research to gain favor in the eyes of their peers and to gain fame. When there is an economic interest involved one can be virtually guaranteed that the full facts will not come out, it's naive to suppose otherwise. The problem is that so much money is involved, so many attitudes institutionalized and reputations on the line that it is hard to see that this will change. The industry and the W3C need to reassess their value systems. Best Regards, Laura -- Laura L. Carlson
Received on Saturday, 6 September 2008 11:37:28 UTC