GIGO — Garbage in Garbage Out Concept for UX Research
What is GIGO Concept?
GIGO (Garbage in Garbage Out) concept usually heard in Mathematics & Computer Science. and it says that the quality of output is determined by the quality of input.
The Quality of Information coming out can never be better than the quality of information went it.
Same GIGO concept is applied in the context of User Research. If you really want an effective outcome of the result, you need to make sure about 2 things.
- Right Sample (The People you interview)
- Right Questions (The Questions you ask your respondents)
Choose the right Sample — You need to be very cautious during choosing the Sample. Type of Sample, Size of Sample etc. People does a lot of mistake during screening their Sample for the research. So make sure you don’t rush and do mistakes in Sampling. Otherwise you might end up doing Sampling Error.
Sampling Error — In the sampling method, you need to try to approximate some feature of a given population from a sample drawn from it. Now, since in the sample all the members of the population are not included, howsoever close the approximation is, it is not identical to the required population feature and some error is committed. This error is called the sampling error.
Types of Sampling Errors
- Population Specification Error — This error occurs when the researcher does not understand who they should choose as respondent.
- Sample Frame Error — A frame error occurs when the wrong sub-population is used to select a sample.
- Selection Error — This occurs when respondents self-select their participation in the study — only those that are interested respond.
- Non-Response — Non-response errors occur when respondents are different than those who do not respond
Ask the right question — people do mistake in choosing the questions and way of asking the questions. Here are some points to take care during finalising the questions.
Make sure that your questions are not…
- Bias / Leading
- Embedded Assumptions
- Double barrelled
- Close Ended (Sometimes wisely you must use Close ended as well)
- Confusing
Also During the interview, you need to observe some gestures, which is
- Facial Expressions
- Body Language
- Eye Contact
So Make sure you don’t do Garbage IN garbage OUT, Put a quality input and insure a Valid, Reliable & quality output / results.
Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.
Happy Reading !
Connect with me on…
