what is a research scope?
Scoping is figuring out what, exactly, to explore for a study. It’s a Goldilocks
problem: you don’t want the scope too broad, or you will not see patterns appear in
the data, but you don’t want it too narrow, or the participants will tell you
everything they have to say about it in five minutes. You want to get the scope just
right–somewhere in between these two extremes.
The scope is how you begin a listening session. It’s how you introduce the subject
you’d like the participant to cover, and it’s the only question you think of in
advance.
You can explore several different scopes over time, each examining an intent or
purpose a person has before reaching for your solution. Each scope has its own
study. Scopes are difficult–often it takes a week of discussion to figure out which
scope to explore for an upcoming study. Sometimes you discover a scope is too
broad or too narrow after the few couple of listening sessions, so you must adjust it
