Things I've learned about qualitative research

• getting information about the context, the setting, and rich descriptions of the sights and sounds really does matter
• the questions between questions and between interactions are fruitful
• there's zero 'downtime'
  
• digital voice recorders are awesome
  
• transcribing takes a long time
• writing field notes takes a long time
• dragging data around takes a long time
• Excel is your friend
  
• qualitative analysis software IS helpful
• drawing paper-and-pencil diagrams really helps me
• no question or hunch is too small or silly :)
• one step at a time

You know how some people say- Don't worry, be happy! Well, qualitative researchers say- Don't worry, be iterative!!