Reports & Guides
SECTION 01 /06
Qualitative research has a capacity problem
Insights and UX teams are being asked to inform more decisions, across more markets, on shorter timelines. Traditional qualitative research can't keep up, not because the method is weak, but because it depends on human moderators who are expensive, scarce, and impossible to scale.
The math is unforgiving. A typical qual project takes 21–34 days from design to report. And in an $84 billion research industry, most organizations still cap out at 20–30 interviews per project, because that's all the moderation budget allows.
What this leads to:
Product, design, and marketing decisions made before research can weigh in
Samples too small to trust across segments, personas, or markets
Researchers spending their weeks on scheduling, transcription, and coding instead of interpretation and strategy