Help me run a focus group.

June 24, 2009 4:05 PM

Focus group 101: How do I run one of these things, anyway?

At work I have suddenly inherited the job of running a focus group in the next couple of days. The person previously responsible didn't leave behind anything that I can find in the way of notes on what I should be asking people. I have taken part as a participant in a few focus groups but have never run one, so I am mildly in a tizzy.

For what it's worth, it will be a group of eight participants from a variety of backgrounds who will be looking over the new wording of several pages on a website to see if it conveys the information they would like to have. The text they will be looking at is about 600 words long. I have in mind to ask:

-- is the overall message is clear?
-- should there be more or less information on A, B, C and D?
-- did they know anything about A, B, C and D before today?
-- would this give them the information they would need to make a choice about using the service supported by A, B, C and D?

The group will be spending 45 minutes to an hour doing this. What else? Is there a website I can peruse for an hour or two to get a better idea of how to do this?

posted by ricochet biscuit to work & money (6 comments total)

One of the keys to running an effective focus group is to stimulate a discussion, so I would suggest rewording many of your questions to be far more open-ended. For example, instead of "is the overall message is clear?", you should be asking things like "what do you think of the message?, "how does it stack up against other websites you're accustomed to using?, etc.

Really, your choice of topics should be driven by what you would like to learn. Especially since this was essentially dumped in your lap, you have complete license to ask the interested parties within your company what they would want to get from the focus group. That should help you put together a list of topics and potential questions in advance of the focus group.

Beyond that, be sure to practice active listening (especially summarizing what you hear to check for full understanding), take notes, ask the other participants to weigh in after someone has offered an important or insightful point, and be prepared for the focus group and its input to go somewhere you didn't really expect.

Good luck (and have some fun)!
posted by DrGail at 4:16 PM on June 24

A normal focus group seeks people's general opinion in a structured way. That can work well if you are evaluating something fairly abstract such as perceptions of a brand. In your case you have something more concrete - namely a site design. Based on having done something a bit like this in previous jobs my instinct would be to combine elements of a focus group with elements of an experiment. So for example you might:

1. In advance of the group come up with some examples of how you would expect people to be using your website: new user, expert user, administrator, etc. Work out the sorts of information that would be needed for each scenario and use it to write a challenge. Something like "You are a new user - use the site to find the product you want and make a booking for 2 people next week".
2. In the group I would do a general introduction - then divide people into pairs and ask them to go through your tasks together. I might give each pair a stopwatch and let them see how long it takes them to complete the tasks.
3. In the final part of the session I would ask each group to report on their experience. Then open up for a general discussion.

The point of doing this is that it will give you both subjective data on what people think of the site and some objective information on how long it takes them to find information, etc.
posted by rongorongo at 4:18 PM on June 24

Peruse Amazon for well-rated books on the subject. They'll be better than nothing. I bought some when I ran a focus group years ago and they were helpful.

You should structure a feedback tool beforehand like a survey and make sure you think through what action you would take based on the results. You need to ask questions that will drive actions. Questions that don't give a clear direction won't help you but that may not be apparent until you get the answers. So spend some time thinking though the possible answers to ensure your questions to the group are relevant.
posted by GuyZero at 4:23 PM on June 24

See if you can view* this video of a Peter Hart focus group from CSPAN - he's a Democratic political pollster and regarded as one of the best. We had to watch one of his focus groups for a polling class I took and we all learned a lot from watching him.



*I can't view it, but I blame Google Chrome
posted by lunasol at 6:07 PM on June 24

rewording many of your questions to be far more open-ended
This. Everything you posted as a question is an A or B answer, and will not lead to the free-thinking tangential discussions that are likely to get at the points you didn`t even know you had to ask about.
posted by whatzit at 3:50 AM on June 25

How 'bout:
- "What do you feel is the overall message?"
- "Of A, B, C, and D, which did you feel you learned more about? Why didn't you choose [un-chosen letter] instead?"
posted by coolguymichael at 12:28 PM on June 25