Value of Focus Groups

These issues address when focus groups are appropriate.

Appropriate Inquiry Goals

Focus groups can help you learn about people's:

• Desires
• Motivations
• Values
• First-hand experiences

These topics address what people think and how they think.

Kuniavsky discusses four types of focus groups that are primarily organized by their inquiry goals (see pp. 205 - 207):

• Exploratory. The focus group reveals previously unknown issues including problems, attitudes and perceptions.
• Feature prioritization. The focus group helps rank the importance of proposed features.
• Competitive analysis. The focus group reveals contrasting attitudes and experiences with different products.
• Trend explanation. The focus group reveals reasons why particular consumer trends or problems are occurring.

Other considerations for using a focus group

• Recruiting and Scheduling Participants
• Convenient and appropriate setting

Items for discussion

• What inquiry goals are not appropriate for focus groups?
• How should a feature prioritization focus group be conducted?