What are Focus Groups?
A focus group is a group interview with participants from your target audience.
A focus group is a group interview with participants from your target audience.
SubscribeWhat is a Target Audience?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.
"A focus group is conducted by engaging a group of respondents who are of interest to the researcher in a group conversation. The individuals are often similar to one another in some way that is germane to the research question (for example, a group of teachers could be gathered to conduct a focus group on the resource needs of educators). During the discussion, participants are encouraged by the moderator to share their opinions, “without pressuring participants to vote or reach consensus” (Krueger and Casey, 2000: p. 4)."
Advantages of Focus Groups
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.
Disadvantages of Focus Groups
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.
Looking to learn more on carrying out user research ?
To learn more about how to carry out user research on individuals or focus groups, consult the links below.
Looking to learn more about Research and Strategy?
Search our blog to find educational content on research and strategy.