Are Surveys Good for Anything? While surveys are bad at supporting initial learning, they can be quite effective at verifying what you learn from customer interviews. I discussed the principle of two-phase validations earlier — first qualitative, then quantitative. The customer interview is a form of qualitative validation that is quite effective in uncovering strong signals for or against hypotheses using a “reasonably” small sample size. Once you have preliminary validation on your hypotheses, you can then use what you have learned to craft a survey and verify your findings quantitatively.
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