This is an interesting topic, Lynn, but it's also pretty complex. If
my answer fails to address your concerns appropriately, please feel
free to request a clarification, and I'll try to address your topic
more specifically.
I also want to note that, throughout the answer, I've referred to the
subject of your focus group as a 'product.' However, because I don't
know exactly what you're studying, I've tried to keep the information
general enough that it could apply to a product, a service, a
platform, and ideological concept (like a political issue), or
anything else I could think of. So you should be able to interchange
the term 'product' with a more appropriate term, if necessary.
A quickie Google search on "focus groups" turns up a number of
excellent resources. I've tried to provide a quick overview of some of
the more relevant ones, and glean some of the basic information as
well.
Broadly, the advice follows these general principles:
1. Recruit participants from your target audience.
2. Include somewhere between 6 and 12 participants.
3. Make the participants comfortable.
4. Keep the focus group focused on the topic at hand.
5. At the same time, keep the discussion open-ended enough to
encourage active participation, and to get the most out of the group.
6. Don't rely on yes or no questions.
7. Choose your moderator carefully. You'll need someone who can both
engage the participants and remain objective enough to allow a broad
range of discussion.
This PDF booklet from the American Statistical Association provides a
very broad overview of focus groups, in the context of available
market research tools:
http://www.amstat.org/sections/srms/brochures/focusgroups.pdf
They describe focus groups as such:
"Focus groups are not polls but in-depth, qualitative interviews with
a small number of carefully selected people brought together to
discuss a host of topics ranging from pizza to safe sex."
This booklet approaches the topic from a statistician's perspective
rather than a marketer's, so they're relatively analytical on the
topic, emphasizing the lack of objective data that can be derived and
so forth. All the same, it's a very informative document, and has an
excellent treatment of the pros and cons of focus groups in general,
as well as tips for running a focus group effectively.
The basic nuts and bolts of setting up and conducting a focus group
are covered very thoroughly in the links on this page:
http://www.mapnp.org/library/grp_skll/focusgrp/focusgrp.htm
Topics discuss the basics of developing a 'script' to guide the group
interactions, setting up the environment to put the participants at
ease, how to get the best and most useful information you can, and so
forth.
Note that some of the links from here lead to the website for the
company Market Navigation, Inc. A little digging reveals their main
page for focus group information here:
http://www.mnav.com/qualitative_research.htm
This page links to a lot of really good articles on focus group
research, including everything from basic logistics to focus group
psychology to alernative focus group formats.
This article, called "How to Get Beneath the Surface in Focus Groups,"
provides many excellent techniques for successful focus groups, as
well as an overview of the problems inherent in the focus group
format:
http://www.mnav.com/bensurf.htm
It's far too detailed to summarize effectively here, but the topics
addressed include the following:
* Techniques for getting to the real truth behind consumer behaviors,
rather than relying on them to report their motivations and logic.
* Techniques for recruiting participants.
* Alternate formats for focus groups.
It's a long article, with lots of information, but if you read nothing
else, check out the section titled "Non-directive probes for use in
focus groups." This section provides very quick, easy to implement
techniques for getting straight to the information you're looking for.
These guidelines can help you ferret out the real triggers that
motivate your audience, rather than simply the ones they are conscious
of or willing to admit to.
Another wealth of focus group articles, these by Tom Greenbaum, is
available from this site:
http://www.groupsplus.com/pages/articles.htm
See also this gem from Jakob Nielsen:
http://www.useit.com/papers/focusgroups.html
This refers specifically to software products, so if by chance you are
working with software, you might want to start here. Regardless,
there's certainly some general information we can glean from this
paper:
1. Don't rely too heavily on focus groups when usability is a prime
concern.
From the article:
"Software products, websites, and other interactive systems also need
to be liked by customers, but no amount of subjective preference will
make a product viable if users can't use it."
This would apply equally to complicated, non-software products such as
electronics.
2. Keep the discussions on track, and do what you can to get input
from all of the participants.
See the "Getting Focused" section in Nielsen's article.
3. Make your questions and examples as concrete as possible. How the
participants relate to abstract concepts is of little use to you. What
you really need to understand is their perceptions of the product
itself.
4. Know your audience. The examples from Nielsen's paper describe
online focus groups designed to assess computer topics. The trick here
is to set up a focus group that represents your target market. If it's
a technical product, try to set up a group of people who would be
likely to buy or use the product; if it's a political platform, try to
find voters; and so on.
And here's another excellent overview of focus groups:
http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/SRU19.html
Much of this is background information, which is moot to someone who
has already decided to set up a focus group, but there is some
valuable information in there.
The discussions on organizing focus groups and the moderator's role,
in particular, are useful.
The section titled "The practical organisation of focus groups"
describes the nuts and bolts of setting up a focus group, including
how many participants you want, where to hold them, for how long, and
so forth.
Also very useful is the section titled "The role of the moderator."
From this section:
"Once a meeting has been arranged, the role of moderator or group
facilitator becomes critical, especially in terms of providing clear
explanations of the purpose of the group, helping people feel at ease,
and facilitating interaction between group members."
This is one of those questions where the difficulty in answering is
based on the sheer volume of information available, rather than the
lack thereof; so if I've failed to address specific concerns or
topics, please feel free to request a clarification, and I'll try to
get you the information you're looking for.
Good luck,
Lisa. |
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