Teams delay research waiting for statistical significance they don't need for the decision in front of them.
There is a category error at the heart of most research debates: treating a design question as if it were a measurement question. Measuring how many people drop off needs a large sample. Finding out why needs a small one, watched closely.
What eleven people gave us
Eleven merchants, in their own shops, on their own phones. By the fourth session the pattern was unmissable, and sessions five through eleven only sharpened the language we used to describe it.
Nothing about a larger sample would have changed the design decision. It would have changed the date we made it.
Location beats sample size
The single highest-leverage variable in qualitative work is not how many people you talk to. It is whether you observe them in the environment where the task actually happens, with the interruptions that actually occur.
A lab session with thirty people would have missed the drawer at home entirely.
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The Musebit Agency team
Research, product design and design systems.