Focus Groups

Contents What is a focus group and why use it Methods When to use Focus Groups Advantages and Disadvantages Example

What are Focus Groups Formal way of having groups of people discuss topics Specific Demographic Defined Topic Provides rich, detailed info Provide insight into opinions, ideas or beliefs, and wants

Why use a Focus Group? In Marketing Stay in touch with the consumer Make their products more appealing Increase their sales –To identify customer needs and work practices –To test out new products –Explore customer satisfaction with existing products User based approach to design

Methods Identify major objectives Develop Questions Hire a Moderator –Leads the discussion Choose participants –Common characteristic (e.g. age, gender) –6-12 participants

The Focus Group agenda Welcome Welcome Review the goals of the meeting: Ground rules Introductions Questions and discussion period: End wrap up

Data Collection Note taking: Cost Effective Difficult to note all verbalizations Tape Recording Cost Effective Review tapes later Able to gather all verbalizations Impossible to gather non-verbal information Video All verbal and non-verbal information Can be intrusive

Analysis Data is qualitative Transcribe collected data Organize data into categories Examine common trends Write up the final report based on the findings.

Development Cycle At the beginning user wants and desires gain insight into new ideas If redesigning a product Existing problems Examine the tasks users’ perform Features users like or don’t like Increase usability

Development Cycle In the Final Stages –With a finalized product initial reactions Usefulness of the product Hybrid Approach –Mixture of Usability and Focus Group initial reactions Did the product met their needs Difficulties interacting with it

Advantages Rich, in-depth information Open-ended questions Answers questions not available with other methods What people think or want Moderator able to probe for more information Less time consuming and relatively inexpensive

Disadvantages Results not generalizable Sample is not randomly selected Data is qualitative, not quantitative Data may not always be accurate people notoriously inaccurate people change behaviors under observation Analysis time consuming and difficult

Conclusions Focus groups can provide an abundance of rich information in a quick period of time, but this should not be your only way of gathering information. It is good to combine many methods of analysis and data collection into a product design

Example BMW is looking at redesigning their in-vehicle navigation system Major Objectives: –Find out what features users want in the design –Any features that need to be redesigned to increase usability –New ideas on how to present information You are contacted to be participants in this focus group –You are potential end users of the device

Current In-vehicle navigation system