An intellectual history of NUD*IST and NVivo

This paper provides for the record an account of the intellectual development of the two qualitative data analysis programs that the author designed, together with Lyn Richards, and the theme behind the history is computing has enabled new, previously unavailable qualitative techniques.

Abstract

Since the rise of qualitative computing in the mid-1980s, the field of qualitative data analysis has changed in a number of ways, which remarkably have been ignored in the methodological literature, to the detriment of the area's self-understanding. This paper provides for the record an account of the intellectual development of the two qualitative data analysis programs that I have designed, together with Lyn Richards. The theme behind the history is: (1) computing has enabled new, previously unavailable qualitative techniques; (2) some important pre-computer techniques and methods were not supported by computerization of the field, at least until recently; and hence (3) computerization encouraged some biases in qualitative techniques. I hope that this paper will act as a source for a revitalized and up-to-date debate on methods and techniques that recognizes computer use as an agent of change in the field.