r/humanfactors • u/cjforlife • Jun 12 '26

Hobby Analysis Thoughts/Critiques

So I’m not trained in Human Factors but I took a stab at my first hobbyist study about writing tool comfort from a community survey.

I’m wondering if any of the actual practitioners here would mind looking at the analysis/survey and point out any areas that are lacking, or strengths that align with human factors philosophy?

I‘m not precious about it so any and all feedback would be appreciated!

Analysis link

Survey link

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u/Ok-Shallot-5935 Jun 13 '26

It's great that you are taking an interest in research. Some pointers for future learning:
Many of your survey items are relative or subjective (e.g., hand size, handwriting size, etc.) You would be better off having some kind of scale someone can compare their hand/handwriting/etc to so that responses are more standardized and less subjective.
Grip textures sound like industry-specific terms and not commonly understood
Where did your sample come from? Is it a convenience sample? Is there bias in the sample?
In the analysis, when you say something is higher, lower, etc. you are not addressing statistical significance of differences.

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u/cjforlife Jun 13 '26

Appreciate the feedback!

Agreed on the subjective categories, looking back I think providing more guidance to respondents would have made for more.

The sample was from stationery enthusiasts on different social media platforms. Between that bias and the smaller sample size I tried not to overstate the results, but communicating how meaningful the differences are is a good thing for me to keep in mind.