A beginner’s guide to qualitative and quantitative research
In the field of user research, every method is either qualitative, quantitative – or both. Understandably, there’s some confusion around these 2 approaches and where the different methods are applicable. This article provides a handy breakdown of the different terms and where and why you’d want to use qualitative or quantitative research methods.
Qualitative research
Let’s start with qualitative research, an approach that’s all about the ‘why’. It’s exploratory and not about numbers, instead focusing on reasons, motivations, behaviors and opinions – it’s best at helping you gain insight and delve deep into a particular problem. This type of data typically comes from conversations, interviews and responses to open questions. The real value of qualitative research is in its ability to give you a human perspective on a research question. Unlike quantitative research, this approach will help you understand some of the more intangible factors – things like behaviors, habits and past experiences – whose effects may not always be readily apparent when you’re conducting quantitative research. A qualitative research question could be investigating why people switch between different banks, for example.
When to use qualitative research
Qualitative research is best suited to identifying how people think about problems, how they interact with products and services, and what encourages them to behave a certain way. For example, you could run a study to better understand how people feel about a product they use, or why people have trouble filling out your sign up form. Qualitative research can be very exploratory (e.g., user interviews) as well as more closely tied to evaluating designs (e.g., usability testing). Good qualitative research questions to ask include:
Why do customers never add items to their wishlist on our website?
How do new customers find out about our services?
What are the main reasons people don’t sign up for our newsletter?
How to gather qualitative data
There’s no shortage of methods to gather qualitative data, which commonly takes the form of interview transcripts, notes and audio and video recordings. Here are some of the most widely-used qualitative research methods:
Usability test – Test a product with people by observing them as they attempt to complete various tasks.
User interview – Sit down with a user to learn more about their background, motivations and pain points.
Contextual inquiry – Learn more about your users in their own environment by asking them questions before moving onto an observation activity.
Focus group – Gather 6 to 10 people for a forum-like session to get feedback on a product.
How many participants will you need?
You don’t often need large numbers of participants for qualitative research, with the average range usually somewhere between 5 to 10 people. You’ll likely require more if you're focusing your work on specific personas, for example, in which case you may need to study 5-10 people for each persona. While this may seem quite low, consider the research methods you’ll be using. Carrying out large numbers of in-person research sessions requires a significant time investment in terms of planning, actually hosting the sessions and analyzing your findings.
Quantitative research
On the other side of the coin you’ve got quantitative research. This type of research is focused on numbers and measurement, gathering data and being able to transform this information into statistics. Given that quantitative research is all about generating data that can be expressed in numbers, there multiple ways you make use of it. Statistical analysis means you can pull useful facts from your quantitative data, for example trends, demographic information and differences between groups. It’s an excellent way to understand a snapshot of your users. A quantitative research question could involve investigating the number of people that upgrade from a free plan to a paid plan.
When to use quantitative research
Quantitative research is ideal for understanding behaviors and usage. In many cases it's a lot less resource-heavy than qualitative research because you don't need to pay incentives or spend time scheduling sessions etc). With that in mind, you might do some quantitative research early on to better understand the problem space, for example by running a survey on your users. Here are some examples of good quantitative research questions to ask:
How many customers view our pricing page before making a purchase decision?
How many customers search versus navigate to find products on our website?
How often do visitors on our website change their password?
How to gather quantitative data
Commonly, quantitative data takes the form of numbers and statistics.
Here are some of the most popular quantitative research methods:
Card sorts – Find out how people categorize and sort information on your website.
First-click tests – See where people click first when tasked with completing an action.
A/B tests – Compare 2 versions of a design in order to work out which is more effective.
Clickstream analysis – Analyze aggregate data about website visits.
How many participants will you need?
While you only need a small number of participants for qualitative research, you need significantly more for quantitative research. Quantitative research is all about quantity. With more participants, you can generate more useful and reliable data you can analyze. In turn, you’ll have a clearer understanding of your research problem. This means that quantitative research can often involve gathering data from thousands of participants through an A/B test, or with 30 through a card sort. Read more about the right number of participants to gather for your research.
Mixed methods research
While there are certainly times when you’d only want to focus on qualitative or quantitative data to get answers, there’s significant value in utilizing both methods on the same research projects.Interestingly, there are a number of research methods that will generate both quantitative and qualitative data. Take surveys as an example. A survey could include questions that require written answers from participants as well as questions that require participants to select from multiple choices.
Looking back at the earlier example of how people move from a free plan to a paid plan, applying both research approaches to the question will yield a more robust or holistic answer. You’ll know why people upgrade to the paid plan in addition to how many. You can read more about mixed methods research in this article:
Now that you know the difference between qualitative and quantitative research, the best way to build confidence is to start testing. Hands-on experience is the fastest path to deeper insight. At Optimal, we make it easy to run your first study, no matter your role or research experience.
When evaluating tools for user testing and participant recruitment, Askable often appears on the shortlist, especially for teams based in Australia and New Zealand. But in 2025, many researchers are finding Askable’s limitations increasingly difficult to work around: restricted study volume, inconsistent participant quality, and new pricing that limits flexibility.
If you’re exploring Askable alternatives that offer more scalability, higher data quality, and global reach, here are five strong options.
1. Optimal: Best Overall Alternative for Scalable, AI-Powered Research
Optimal is a comprehensive user insights platform supporting the full research lifecycle, from participant recruitment to analysis and reporting. Unlike Askable, which has historically focused on recruitment, Optimal unifies multiple research methods in one platform, including prototype testing, card sorting, tree testing, and AI-assisted interviews.
Why teams switch from Askable to Optimal
1. You can only run one study at a time in Askable
Optimal removes that bottleneck, letting you launch multiple concurrent studies across teams and research methods.
2. Askable’s new pricing limits flexibility
Optimal offers scalable plans with unlimited seats, so teams only pay for what they need.
3. Askable’s participant quality has dropped
Optimal provides access to over 100+ million verified participants worldwide, with strong fraud-prevention and screening systems that eliminate low-effort or AI-assisted responses.
Additional advantages
End-to-end research tools in one workspace
AI-powered insight generation that tags and summarizes automatically
Enterprise-grade reliability with decade-long market trust
Dedicated onboarding and SLA-backed support
Best for: Teams seeking an enterprise-ready, scalable research platform that eliminates the operational constraints of Askable.
2. UserTesting: Best for Video-Based Moderated Studies
UserTesting remains one of the most established platforms for moderated and unmoderated usability testing. It excels at gathering video feedback from participants in real time.
Pros:
Large participant pool with strong demographic filters
Supports moderated sessions and live interviews
Integrations with design tools like Figma and Miro
Cons:
Higher cost at enterprise scale
Less flexible for survey-driven or unmoderated studies compared with Optimal
The UI has become increasingly complex and buggy as UserTesting has been expanding their platform through acquisitions such as UserZoom and Validately.
Best for: Companies prioritizing live, moderated usability sessions.
3. Maze: Best for Product Teams Using Figma Prototypes
Maze offers seamless Figma integration and focuses on automating prototype-testing workflows for product and design teams.
Pros:
Excellent Figma and Adobe XD integration
Automated reporting
Good fit for early-stage design validation
Cons:
Limited depth for qualitative research
Smaller participant pool
Best for: Design-first teams validating prototypes and navigation flows.
4. Lyssna (formerly UsabilityHub): Best for Fast Design Feedback
Lyssna focuses on quick-turn, unmoderated studies such as preference tests, first-click tests, and five-second tests.
Pros:
Fast turnaround
Simple, intuitive interface
Affordable for smaller teams
Cons:
Limited participant targeting options
Narrower study types than Askable
Best for: Designers and researchers running lightweight validation tests.
5. Dovetail: Best for Research Repository and Analysis
Dovetail is primarily a qualitative data repository rather than a testing platform. It’s useful for centralizing and analyzing insights from research studies conducted elsewhere.
Pros:
Strong tagging and note-taking features
Centralized research hub for large teams
Cons:
Doesn’t recruit participants or run studies
Requires manual uploads from other tools like Askable or UserTesting
Best for: Research teams centralizing insights from multiple sources.
Final Thoughts on Alternatives to Askable
If your goal is simply to recruit local participants, Askable can still meet basic needs. But if you’re looking to scale research in your organization, integrate testing and analysis, and automate insights, Optimal stands out as the best long-term investment. Its blend of global reach, AI-powered analysis, and proven enterprise support makes it the natural next step for growing research teams. You can try Optimal for free here.
The footer of a website sits at the very bottom of every single web page and contains links to various types of content on your website. It’s an often overlooked component of a website, but it plays several important roles in your information architecture (IA) – it’s not just some extra thing that gets plonked at the bottom of every page.
Getting your website footer right matters!
The footer communicates to your website visitors that they’ve reached the bottom of the page and it’s also a great place to position important content links that don’t belong anywhere else – within reason. A website footer is not a dumping ground for random content links that you couldn’t find a home for, however there are some content types that are conventionally accessed via the footer e.g., privacy policies and copyright information just to name a few.
Lastly, from a usability and navigation perspective, website footers can serve as a bit of a safety net for lost website visitors. Users might be scrolling and scrolling trying to find something and the footer might be what catches them and guides them back to safety before they give up on your website and go elsewhere. Footers are a functional and important part of your overall IA, but also have their own architecture too.
Read on to learn about the types of content links that might be found in a footer, see some real life examples and discuss some approaches that you might take when testing your footer to ensure that your website is supporting your visitors from top to bottom.
What belongs in a website footer
Deciding which content links belong in your footer depends entirely on your website. The type of footer, its intent and content depends on its audience of your customers, potential customers and more — ie your website visitors. Every website is different, but here’s a list of links to content types that might typically be found in a footer.
Legal content that may include: Copyright information, disclaimer, privacy policy, terms or use or terms of service – always seek appropriate advice on legal content and where to place it!
Your site map
Contact details including social media links and live chat or chat bot access
Customer service content that may include: shipping and delivery details, order tracking, returns, size guides, pricing if you’re a service and product recall information.
Website accessibility details and ways to provide feedback
‘About Us’ type content that may include: company history, team or leadership team details, the careers page and more
Key navigational links that also appear in the main navigation menu that is presented to website visitors when they first land on the page (e.g. at the top or the side)
Website footer examples
Let’s take a look at three diverse real life examples of website footers.
IKEA US
IKEA’s US website has an interesting double barrelled footer that is also large and complex – a ‘fat footer’ as it’s often called – and its structure changes as you travel deeper into the IA. The below image taken from the IKEA US home page shows two clear blocks of text separated by a blue horizontal line. Above the line we have the heading of ‘All Departments’ with four columns showing product categories and below the line there are seven clear groups of content links covering a broad range of topics including customer service information, links that appear in the top navigation menu and careers. At the very bottom of the footer there are social media links and the copyright information for the website.
IKEA US home page footer (accessed May 2019)
As expected, IKEA’s overall website IA is quite large, and as a website visitor clicks deeper into the IA, the footer starts to change. On the product category landing pages, the footer is mostly the same but with a new addition of some handy breadcrumbs to aid navigation (see below image).
IKEA US website footer as it appears on the product category landing page for Textiles & Rugs (accessed May 2019).
When a website visitor travels all the way down to the individual product page level, the footer changes again. In the below image found on the product page for a bath mat, while the blue line and everything below it is still there, the ‘All Departments’ section of the footer has been removed and replaced with non-clickable text on the left hand side that reads as ‘More Bath mats’ and a link on the right hand side that says ‘Go to Bath mats’. Clicking on that link takes the website visitor back to the page above.
IKEA US website footer as it appears on the product page for a bath mat (accessed May 2019).
Overall, evolving the footer content as the website visitor progresses deeper into the IA is an interesting approach - as the main page content becomes more focussed as does the footer while still maintaining multiple supportive safety net features.
M.A.C Cosmetics US
The footer for the US website of this well known cosmetics brand has a four part footer. At first it appears to just have three parts as shown in the image below: a wide section with seven content link categories covering a broad range of content types as the main part with a narrow black strip on either end of it making up the second and third parts. The strip above has loyalty program and live chat links and the strip below contains mostly links to legal content.
MAC Cosmetics US website footer with three parts as it appears on the home page upon first glance (accessed May 2019).
When a website visitor hovers over the ‘Join our loyalty program’ call to action (CTA) in that top narrow strip, the hidden fourth part of the footer which is slightly translucent pulls up like a drawer and sits directly above the strip capping off the top of the main section (as shown in the below image). This section contains more information about the loyalty program and contains further CTAs to join or sign in. It disappears when the cursor is moved away from the hover CTA or it can be collapsed manually via the arrow in the top right hand corner of this fourth part. It’s an interesting and unexpected interaction to have with a footer, but it adds to the overall consistent and cohesive experience of this website because it feels like the footer is an active participant in that experience.
MAC Cosmetics US website footer as it appears on the home page with all four parts visible (accessed May 2019).
Domino’s Pizza US
Domino’s Pizza’s US website has a reasonably flat footer in terms of architecture but it occupies as much space as a more complex or deeper footer. As shown in the image below, its content links are presented horizontally over three rows on the left hand side of the footer and these links are visually separated by forward slashes. It also displays social media links and some advertising content on the right hand side. The most interesting feature of this footer is the large paragraph of text titled ‘Legal Stuff’ below the links. Delightfully it uses direct, clear and plain language and even includes a note about delivery charges not including tips and to ‘Please reward your driver for awesomeness’.
Domino’s Pizza US website footer as it appears on the home page (accessed May 2019).
How to test a website footer
Like every other part of your website, the only way you’re going to know if your footer is supporting your website visitors is if you test it with them. When testing a website’s IA overall, the footer is often excluded. This might be because we want to focus on other areas first or maybe it’s because testing everything at once has the potential to be overwhelming for our research participants.
Testing a footer is fairly easy thing to do and there’s no right or wrong approach – it really does depend on where you are up to in your project, the resources you have available to you and the size and complexity of the footer itself!
If you’re designing a footer for a new website there’s a few ways you might approach ensuring your footer is best supporting your website visitors. If you’re planning to include a large and complex footer, it’s a good idea to start by running an open card sort just on those footer links. An open card sort will help you understand how your website visitors expect those content links in your footer to be grouped and what they think those groups should be called.
If you’re redesigning an existing website, you might first run a tree test on the existing footer to benchmark test it and to pinpoint the exact issues. You might tree test just the footer in the study or you might test the whole website including the footer. Optimal's tree testing is really flexible and you can tree test just a small section of an IA or you can do the whole thing in one go to find out where people are getting lost in the structure. Your approach will depend on your project and what you already know so far. If you suspect there may be issues with the website’s footer, for example, if no one is visiting it and/or you’ve been receiving customer service requests from visitors to help them find content that only lives in the footer, it would be a good idea to consider isolating it for testing. This will help you avoid any competition between the footer and the rest of your IA as well as any potential confusion that may arise from duplicated tree branches (i.e. when your footer contains duplicate labels).
If you’re short on time and there aren’t any known issues with the footer prior to a redesign, you might tree test the entire IA in your benchmark study, iterate your design and then along with everything else, include testing activities for your footer in your moderated usability testing plan. You might include a usability testing scenario or question that requires your participants to complete a task that involves finding content that can only be found in the footer (e.g., shipping information if it’s an ecommerce website). Also keep a close eye on how your participants are moving around the page in general and see if/when the footer comes into play – is it helping people when they’re lost and scrolling? Or is it going unnoticed? If so, why and so on. Talk to your research participants like you would about any other aspect of your website to find out what’s going on there. When resources are tight, use your best judgement and choose the research approach that’s best for your situation, we’ve all had moments where we’ve had to be pragmatic and do our best with what we have.
When you’re at a stage in your design process where you have a visual design or concept for your footer, you could also run a first-click test. First-click tests are quick and easy and will help you determine how your website visitors are faring once they reach your footer and if they can identify the correct content link to complete their task. Studies can be run remotely or in person and just like the rest of the tools in Optimal's user research platform, are super quick to run and great for reaching website visitors all over the world simply by sharing a link to the study.
In the field of user research, every method is either qualitative, quantitative – or both. Understandably, there’s some confusion around these 2 approaches and where the different methods are applicable. This article provides a handy breakdown of the different terms and where and why you’d want to use qualitative or quantitative research methods.
Qualitative research
Let’s start with qualitative research, an approach that’s all about the ‘why’. It’s exploratory and not about numbers, instead focusing on reasons, motivations, behaviors and opinions – it’s best at helping you gain insight and delve deep into a particular problem. This type of data typically comes from conversations, interviews and responses to open questions. The real value of qualitative research is in its ability to give you a human perspective on a research question. Unlike quantitative research, this approach will help you understand some of the more intangible factors – things like behaviors, habits and past experiences – whose effects may not always be readily apparent when you’re conducting quantitative research. A qualitative research question could be investigating why people switch between different banks, for example.
When to use qualitative research
Qualitative research is best suited to identifying how people think about problems, how they interact with products and services, and what encourages them to behave a certain way. For example, you could run a study to better understand how people feel about a product they use, or why people have trouble filling out your sign up form. Qualitative research can be very exploratory (e.g., user interviews) as well as more closely tied to evaluating designs (e.g., usability testing). Good qualitative research questions to ask include:
Why do customers never add items to their wishlist on our website?
How do new customers find out about our services?
What are the main reasons people don’t sign up for our newsletter?
How to gather qualitative data
There’s no shortage of methods to gather qualitative data, which commonly takes the form of interview transcripts, notes and audio and video recordings. Here are some of the most widely-used qualitative research methods:
Usability test – Test a product with people by observing them as they attempt to complete various tasks.
User interview – Sit down with a user to learn more about their background, motivations and pain points.
Contextual inquiry – Learn more about your users in their own environment by asking them questions before moving onto an observation activity.
Focus group – Gather 6 to 10 people for a forum-like session to get feedback on a product.
How many participants will you need?
You don’t often need large numbers of participants for qualitative research, with the average range usually somewhere between 5 to 10 people. You’ll likely require more if you're focusing your work on specific personas, for example, in which case you may need to study 5-10 people for each persona. While this may seem quite low, consider the research methods you’ll be using. Carrying out large numbers of in-person research sessions requires a significant time investment in terms of planning, actually hosting the sessions and analyzing your findings.
Quantitative research
On the other side of the coin you’ve got quantitative research. This type of research is focused on numbers and measurement, gathering data and being able to transform this information into statistics. Given that quantitative research is all about generating data that can be expressed in numbers, there multiple ways you make use of it. Statistical analysis means you can pull useful facts from your quantitative data, for example trends, demographic information and differences between groups. It’s an excellent way to understand a snapshot of your users. A quantitative research question could involve investigating the number of people that upgrade from a free plan to a paid plan.
When to use quantitative research
Quantitative research is ideal for understanding behaviors and usage. In many cases it's a lot less resource-heavy than qualitative research because you don't need to pay incentives or spend time scheduling sessions etc). With that in mind, you might do some quantitative research early on to better understand the problem space, for example by running a survey on your users. Here are some examples of good quantitative research questions to ask:
How many customers view our pricing page before making a purchase decision?
How many customers search versus navigate to find products on our website?
How often do visitors on our website change their password?
How to gather quantitative data
Commonly, quantitative data takes the form of numbers and statistics.
Here are some of the most popular quantitative research methods:
Card sorts – Find out how people categorize and sort information on your website.
First-click tests – See where people click first when tasked with completing an action.
A/B tests – Compare 2 versions of a design in order to work out which is more effective.
Clickstream analysis – Analyze aggregate data about website visits.
How many participants will you need?
While you only need a small number of participants for qualitative research, you need significantly more for quantitative research. Quantitative research is all about quantity. With more participants, you can generate more useful and reliable data you can analyze. In turn, you’ll have a clearer understanding of your research problem. This means that quantitative research can often involve gathering data from thousands of participants through an A/B test, or with 30 through a card sort. Read more about the right number of participants to gather for your research.
Mixed methods research
While there are certainly times when you’d only want to focus on qualitative or quantitative data to get answers, there’s significant value in utilizing both methods on the same research projects.Interestingly, there are a number of research methods that will generate both quantitative and qualitative data. Take surveys as an example. A survey could include questions that require written answers from participants as well as questions that require participants to select from multiple choices.
Looking back at the earlier example of how people move from a free plan to a paid plan, applying both research approaches to the question will yield a more robust or holistic answer. You’ll know why people upgrade to the paid plan in addition to how many. You can read more about mixed methods research in this article:
Now that you know the difference between qualitative and quantitative research, the best way to build confidence is to start testing. Hands-on experience is the fastest path to deeper insight. At Optimal, we make it easy to run your first study, no matter your role or research experience.
