“I think individual interviews can be helpful but in consumer you have so many people that are very diverse throughout the world — if you talk to five or ten people they might weigh in on a part that gives you a little bit of insight but you can't overindex to that because they still only represent N of five or N of ten.”

Large surveys beat individual interviews for consumer apps — N-of-five creates false signal

Gammon's take: one-on-one user interviews are overrated for consumer apps. With 7,500+ responses to Ladder's annual survey, the signal from a quantitative population far outweighs a handful of qualitative conversations, which easily distort priorities toward a vocal minority. He recommends recurring surveys (at least annually) with carefully non-leading questions as the primary feedback mechanism, now using AI to parse open-ended responses at scale.