Reflections on Smoke and Mirrors Readings :)

Well, I TOTALLY agree with the author that User research is almost always subjective (if not ALWAYS!). No matter how much user research was done, it's the designers who interpret the data, and that's where subjectivity comes in.
So we have quantitative research and qualitative research. Which one is better?
Well, the answer (at least for me) is both are equally necessary.
Qualitative research may create even more room for subjectivity, I agree. But it gives us significant insights in users' thoughts, feelings, reasons, explanations for behaviors, needs, desires... And quantitative research, although dealing with very 'scientific' numerical data, may also be subjective. Without qualitative research to validate the findings from numbers, they can be misleadings. Take the eye tracking tool as an example: when users' eyes stop for a while at a spot on the screen, is it because they find that point interesting, or so hard to figure out that they need more time? well, some designers will tend to prefer the first one =) (of course, it sounds more promising right?) And people will use all those numerical data as their evidence, which may not be right... That's how quantitative data becomes dangerous, since it 'sounds' more accurate than qualitative one and sounds more convincing. I'm not saying that quantitative data is not necessary at all, since it gives us more data about the trends of the majority, but people may abuse it for their own preference =(

So everything is subjective, so every user research is subjective, then what's the point of user research? *_* well, user research is extremely important to reduce the subjectivity to the lowest extent possible. This is because designers alone cannot decide what users want and dont want, what users like and don't like. Therefore, instead of sitting in a closed room and think 'what do user like?', it's much better if they go out and just ask the real users what they think =) The important thing to note is that he/she shouldn't be biased, and shouldn't have a preference in mind. Let the users decide what is good for themselves. And dont forget the right combination of qualitative and quantitative research.