I've been told in private messages that I'm not allowed to ask these questions and that my style is excessively rude. Pardon me for continuing, I think they are important issues. If I come across rude to you just imagine me in person where I am much more likable in conversation. Otherwise, get over it!
On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Brian <[email protected]> wrote: > Ok, I'll agree that the motiviations and size of this pilot study are > reasonable. Then I'd just like to know how much money was spent getting > these answers. If you're not planning to measure the subjects > scientifically and you just want to figure out what the big issues are then > the premise of the lab itself comes into question. > > On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Robert Rohde <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Brian <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Quite frankly the advice that you should only use five subjects makes no >> > sense. The appeal to Nielsen's authority is not going to work on me or >> > anyone else who understands why the scientific method exists. It's >> > unscientific thinking and it's going cause to you waste money. You're >> going >> > to draw conclusions based on results that simply aren't valid, and you >> won't >> > know it until the study is over and you didn't make progress. >> > >> > Careful analysis of site data could allow you to draw some conclusions. >> I'm >> > curious how you're planning to go about that. Dependent/independent >> > variables? >> >> If five subjects, chosen at random, all have the same problem, then >> with 95% confidence you can predict that at least half of the >> population will report having this problem. >> >> This kind of work generally focuses on BIG problems, and you don't >> need a huge sample to identify some of the most common issues. In >> things like UI development it would be surprising if there weren't >> complaints reported by most of the subjects. You may overlook some >> other problems, but when coming up with a list of common problems to >> work on, I would say that 15 subjects is plenty. >> >> -Robert Rohde >> >> _______________________________________________ >> foundation-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l >> > > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
