Conducting a Focus Group

Conducting A Focus Group

What are Focus Groups? And why we use them?

Most people love to be asked their opinion and they're generally not shy about voicing it.

A focus group is basically a way to reach out to your potential users for feedback and comment. Organizations generally use focus groups in planning, marketing, or evaluation, either to improve some specific product or service or, more globally, during the development of strategic plans or mission statements.

In the context of CIMEL project, focus groups help evaluate usability of the interface and representative content.  Focus groups answer questions that the development cannot resolve and can lead to new ideas.

Specifically, the a focus group session concentrates on:

• Gathering opinions, beliefs, and attitudes about issues of interest to your organization 

• Testing your assumptions 

• Encouraging discussion about a particular topic 

• Building excitement from spontaneous combination of participants' comments 

• Providing an opportunity to learn more about a topic or issue.

We divide the activity of conducting a focus group into ‘three main phases’:

Before The Focus Group:

1. Define the purpose, i.e. objectives of the focus group

This has to be clear and specific. The more defined the objective the easier the rest of the process.

2. Establish a timeline

A focus group cannot be developed overnight. The planning has to start several weeks ahead of the actual session; experts say 6 to 8 weeks realistically. Make sure you have enough take time to identify the participants, develop and test the questions, locate a site, invite and follow up with participants, and gather the materials for the sessions.

3.      Identify the participants

        Determine how many participants you need and how many to invite.

        Develop a list of key attributes to seek in participants based on the purpose of the focus group.

        Using the list of attributes, brainstorm...