Sunday Rewind: Why you need quantitative AND qualitative data

This week’s Sunday Rewind is a 2018 post from Glenn Block and Timo Hilhorst on the differences and respective merits of quantitative and qualitative data and why it’s important for product managers to gather both types.

Quantitative or hard data is information that can be measured and written down with numbers. It includes surveys, application metrics and A/B tests. Qualitative or soft data is information that can’t be measured and is subjective. It’s typically what customers say during interviews, phone calls and so on. 

Both tell us about customer behaviour. Qualitative helps you narrow down on the right questions by understanding what problems the customer is having, what matters to them and why. Hard data gives precise answers to precise questions once you’ve done the narrowing down.

The authors then look at where to start and at the customer data cycle. They say that hard and soft data feed into each other and offer some examples. They also warn that you should take care over your assumptions and that results can be wrong.  They say: “As product managers, our job is to learn as much as possible about our customers to help us understand where to invest.  Balancing qualitative and quantitative data is critical for driving product decisions.”

Read the original article: Why you need quantitative AND qualitative data