Qualitative or Quantitative Design Research?

“Quantitative methods tend to tell me whether something happens and how common it is to happen, whether it's something I actually expect to see in practice commonly. Qualitative methods either both tell me new things that I didn't think about before, or give me the ‘why’ answers. If I'm trying to understand ‘why’ it is I'm seeing a phenomenon. The quantitative things—the measurements—say, ‘Yeah, there's something happening, people are finding this feature difficult.’ The qualitative thing helps me understand what it is about it that's difficult and helps me to solve it.”

Alan Dix