Focus Croup Research

Use focus group research at the very early stages of a project to evaluate preliminary concepts with representative users. It can be considered part of "proof of concept" review. In some cases it is used to identify and confirm the characteristics of the representative user altogether. All focus group research

employs the simultaneous involvement of more than one participant, a key factor in differentiating this approach from many other techniques.

The concepts that participants evaluate in these group sessions can be presented in the most preliminary form, such as paper-and-pencil drawings, storyboards, and/or more elaborate screen-based prototypes or plastic models. 

The objective is to identify how acceptable the concepts are, in what ways they are unacceptable or unsatisfactory, and how they might be made more acceptable and useful. The beauty of the focus group is its ability to explore a few people's judgments and feelings in great depth, and in so doing learn something about how end users think and feel. In this way, focus groups  are very different from — and no substitute for — usability tests. A focus group is good for general, qualitative information but not for learning about performance issues and real behaviors. Remember, people in focus groups are reporting what they feel like telling you, which is almost always different from what they actually do. Usability tests are best for observing behaviors and measuring performance issues, while perhaps gathering some qualitative information along the way.