One of the dilemmas in empirical Translation Studies, when investigating translation processes and products, is caused by the fact that we would like to divide them into many different phenomena and investigate these separately under controlled experimental conditions. In reality, however, processes and products cannot be divided clearly into small, discrete parts. They comprise a complex network of factors. These in turn are influenced by several conditions, like the individual background of the translator, the subject of the experiment, the actual situation and conditions of the experiment, and the observer, who interprets the actions during the process and the results. In this article it is argued that phenomenology, an approach derived from human experimental psychology, has dealt with this dilemma and provides useful methods and ideas for improving the field, such as the idea of aiming at increasing clarification via triangulation and the precise description of data from different sources.