4 Steps to Successful Research Projects

I've been in this industry long enough to see why lots of projects fail, so here's 4 quick tips to making them successful.

1) Know what decisions you are going to make BEFORE you start a project. This makes it easy to ensure you get everything you need to support those decisions.

2) Have someone not involved in the project test it to see if people not intimately involved understand the questions. Often times when researchers are immersed in a subject, they forget that participants will have significantly less knowledge in most cases.

3) Take the time to think about the participant experience. Its only good data if people are engaged.

4) Don't assume you know the answers before you start. Its fine to test hypotheses, but include questions that allow your hypotheses to be challenged.

5) (BONUS TIP) Incorporate both qualitative and quantitative questioning into the process. This way you don't assume you know why something gets low or high scores, you know.

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