What are Focus Groups?

Focus groups are a type of qualitative, user research whereby a company or individual can ask a group of participants questions with the means of collecting data about a product, service or experience.

These focus groups are often created by gathering individuals from your target audience and interviewing them as a collective. From these interviews individuals or organizations often create personas to help remind them who they are creating for.

Focus Groups are advantageous as:

• They are quick and easily set up.
• The group dynamic can provide useful information that individual interviews cannot provide.
• They provide insights about the target audience.

Focus Groups can be a disadvantage as:

• Groups are susceptible to bias.
• The conversation can be dominated by a few individuals.
• Data planning and synthesis can be problematic and needs to be planned in advance.
• They don't offer individual information, which can be gathered through IDIs.
• The information may pertain exclusively to the group and not the target audience at large.

To learn more about how to carry out user research on individuals or focus groups, consult the links below.

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